Category Archives: nature

Itching to Hike

Posted by dkrashb on

Back when I was a Camp Fire Girl, I accepted a dare to roll in a patch of poison ivy. 24 hours later, I showed no reaction. Even three days later, there was nothing.
Fast forward about 15 years.

I was working in the garden at our first house, removing the crazy plants that had taken over in front of the house. I noticed about half way through that some of the vines I was attacking were poison ivy. I shrugged and thought, “Good thing I’ m not allergic.”

By the next day, I had a horrible itchy mess. A friend told me running hot water on it would help shorten the length of the reaction by stimulating the histamine response to happen faster (or something like that). I decided to try it. By the following morning, I had an enormous welt at least 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches high. It was oozing so much fluid, a stream was running down my arm.

Ever since, if I so much as see poison ivy (and perhaps more often, when I don’t) I end up breaking out. Thankfully, having learned a few things since then, not like that first time:
1) I watch out for it and avoid it as best as possible.
2) If I do come into contact, I wipe off with alcohol and wash thoroughly at the earliest possible moment.
3) I treat my clothes as hazardous and throw them into the wash in hot water immediately.
4) If I start to itch, I take an anti-histamine.
Above all, I do NOT run extremely hot water over the area!

As we picked our way along the Cumberland Trail last Sunday, all of these memories flooded into my head. The poison ivy grew so prolifically all along the trail, it was impossible to avoid contact. Even of I could have successfully cleared every leaf, vine, and stem, Tisen simply plowed right through it.

After all, Tisen doesn’t have to worry about being allergic to it. But dogs are great transferrers of poison ivy oils from plant to human. So, Tisen got treated like my toxic clothes and went straight into the tub when we got home. He was not very happy about his bath afterwards, as you can see from the last photos.

In spite of the poison ivy, the trail was beautiful. Because it was up high on a ridge, the wind blew through the trees almost constantly. The sound of wind blowing through trees always creates an inner stillness for me–even when I’m watching Tisen run through hundreds of poison ivy plants.
When a grove of older trees started creaking with an almost mechanical noise, I had to laugh–they sounded a lot like my knees.

After winding our way along the ridge listening to the woods being played by the wind like a strange instrument, we decided to head on back. After all, we had eight creaky knees reminding us not to overdo it.

Skinned Knees, Wuthering Heights, and South Korea

Posted by dkrashb on

While shooting wildflowers up close may invoke yoga muscle memory, shooting a landscape of not-so-wild flowers from the ground invokes many childhood memories. First, there is the memory of scraped knees as I kneel onto the sidewalk with my older-than-their-years knees and feel a stab of pain. This is a different stab of pain than the feeling of having your flesh grated by concrete (an all too familiar feeling for me). But being outside fascinated enough by the way the sun hits different flowers as it pokes through holes in the clouds to set up a tripod flat to the ground and then kneel down to look through the viewfinder to see what I can see, that feeling invokes the feelings of exploring and trying something new–a feeling my childhood was full of.
My photo album from my childhood is full of pictures of me in dresses with both knees scraped, bruised, or stained white from climbing a big white fence in our back yard.
I could never get away with anything on today’s world–I left way too much DNA evidence behind everywhere I went. This is still true today. It’s hard for me to make it around the park without a single stumble. At least I outgrew the desire to wear dresses all the time.
I try sitting all the way down to the ground on one hip. My knees are grateful, but my neck kinks as I twist to look in the viewfinder. Is getting older really better than the alternative? I would prefer a just staying young choice.
As I look up the slope with its long grasses and mixed flowers, another memory comes to me. It’s a memory of reading Wuthering Heights. I don’t know what a landscaped slope in Chattanooga, Tennessee has to do with an English moor, but I am suddenly reminded of the Monty Python skit where Catherine and Heathcliff are running towards each other across the moors and inevitably pass each other (since it was a Monty Python skit).
But the memory of Wuthering Heights takes me to another place. It takes me back to South Korea where I spent 4 months when I was 18. I bought a bunch of books there. They were pirated classics, poorly copied and poorly bound, but they were the only affordable books in English I could find.
In a place where everything felt different and strange, I found a little slice of “home” by reading stories that took place in England, where I’d never been. I wonder why that felt familiar?
Today, I wrap up my shoot and slowly stand, testing my sore knee gingerly before putting weight on it. I try to imagine Heathcliff and Catherine with my knees running across the moors. If it would have been me, I would have tripped at the last second and cracked heads with Heathcliff. I should have been on Monty Python.

The Importance of Yoga

Posted by dkrashb on

The most important thing I learned from my mother is to allow myself to experience awe and wonder.  To experience the feeling of wonderment is to experience a sense of delight with what is.  It’s a moment of rest for the brain where you just accept and feel the feeling of “wow.”

As someone who is overly analytical and who could keep up with a three-year old on the frequency of uttering the word “why,” I particularly appreciate these moments when I’m simply too awed to think.

Today, I want to experience the joy of exploring beautiful flowers.

Instead of picking flowers, I photograph them.  One would think that photographing flowers would be a relatively easy task.  They are, after all, not going to run away.

However, given the flowers I most want to photograph are growing in colonies on a hillside, getting into the flowers with my big feet and a tripod turns into quite a feat of athleticism.  I carefully plant the toes of one foot and balance like the karate kid on one leg as I try to gently create a space for my other foot; I am painfully reminded of how long it’s been since I last went to yoga class.

Once I get myself in a spot where I can put both feet on the ground without crushing anything, I bend down and look through the viewfinder to focus on the flower.  The wind is blowing so hard the the flower is literally blowing completely out of my frame.  I have to hold the flower gently with one hand while I move the camera a bit with the other.  And, it turns out, I’m not close enough to the flower to focus.

I must stand, lift the tripod, find another clear spot for each of its legs and repeat the process of focusing and framing without moving my feet.

When I bend back over the camera again, desperately wishing for a place to rest a knee, my hand is shaking–I can’t keep the flower still enough to focus.  I have to straighten up, shake out the soreness, and try again.

In the end, I am grabbing snapshots of a flower as it waves by my lens in the wind because I cannot stand the pain of the position I have to stand in to do otherwise.

While I suppose I could buy a bouquet at the store or even start growing flowers in a pot, one of the things I like about shooting flowers up close and personal in a park is the feeling of surprise.  The first time I look inside a blooming flower with my macro lens, I see something I never expected to see.  Going to the park and exploring flowers I can’t identify and have never seen before keeps me in a state of wonder.

I just didn’t expect photographing flowers to have a prerequisite of regular yoga classes.

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Double Sunset

Posted by dkrashb on

Between working on a self-portrait, working my way through another online photography workshop, and taking a break from from both by shooting outside, I’ve managed to spend nearly all of my weekend on photography.  I pick up my camera and start to tuck it back into my bag when I look out the window.  The sun is doing something amazing.  It’s setting in the East.

I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a directionally challenged friend.  It went roughly like this:

I said, “Look at the sunset!”

She said, “Oh wow!  It’s really beautiful.  I always thought that was the East.”

I replied, “What?”

She repeated, “I always though that was the East.”

Confused, I said, “The sun always sets in the West, so that has to be the West.”

She replied, “Oh, I know the sun always sets in the West, but that’s the East.”

At this point I gave up.

However, I am not confused.  The sun, of course, is setting in the West, but the light is bouncing around in inexplicable ways that make it look like it is also setting in the East.  I cannot explain why the clouds reflect the sun so brilliantly in the Eastern sky tonight, but it’s beautiful.

Frozen with my camera still in my hands, mid-way to being put away, I look at the camera and immediately head to the balcony, grabbing my tripod on the way.  The obstacles from the balcony quickly frustrate me.  I return inside, tripod over my shoulder, and head on up to the roof.

The double sunset motivates me to try to shoot a set of photos that I can stitch together into a panoramic image.  I start in the East and work my way around to the real sunset.  I end up with 12 overlapping photos.  I consider reshooting on the vertical, but the light is starting to change and do other interesting things.

A small wisp of clouds forms just over the ridge in the distance, turning brilliant red.  I decide not to risk missing the last of the light by reshooting the panoramic and shoot the changing light instead.

When I return inside and try to figure out how to stitch the photos, I learn that my Canon software is so outdated it won’t run on any of my computers anymore.  I do some googling to figure out I can use Photoshop Elements to stitch a panoramic and go to work.

Something has gone awry in my 12-photo series and one photo seems to be out of place.  It’s as if I changed focal length in one shot.  I don’t remember doing that, but maybe I bumped the lens and magically bumped it back.  In any case, I don’t much like the panoramic with 12 pictures.  I create one of the East and one of the West instead and am much happier with the results.

I still want that full frame camera, though.

Apple Blossoms

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A bag of trash sits tied and waiting to be carried out to the dumpster.  I grab it and Tisen and we head out, back towards the dumpster.

This takes me into view of the street behind our parking lot lined by trees.  The trees look odd.  For a moment, I can’t process what’s so wrong about them.  Then, I realize they are covered in frost.  But that doesn’t seem right.  I look again.  It’s not frost, it’s blossoms.  I look away and look back again to make sure I didn’t imagine it.  No, they really are in full bloom.

I’m pretty sure they didn’t look like that yesterday.

We head towards to the park and I realize the trees that line our lot are not far behind, partially blooming as well.  I notice the shapes of dozens of mourning doves roosting as I look.  The birds are unperturbed by our presence, but then it takes a lot to roust a roosting mourning dove.

As we make our way through the park, I hear the brown thrasher I’ve been seeing lately.  A small group of yellow-rumped warblers flit by, landing on the ground in front of us before scattering into shrubs.  As I look for the warblers, a large flicker flashes his big white rump as he crosses the path.  Colorful rumps is the bird theme this morning.

Tisen does not appreciate the birds.  Although he is occasionally entertained when they land close, tantalizing enough for him to take a run at them.  I keep telling him he doesn’t chase birds; he keeps assuring me he does.

I notice the fruit trees in the park are also blooming.  It seems a month early to me, but who knows when the trees normally bloom down here.  I hope they aren’t too far off from their normal timing.

It’s a long work day, but since the sun is setting later, I manage to carry my tripod and camera down to the intersection near the blooming apple trees before the last light disappears.  I set up and shoot across Market St.  This makes for some interesting photos as traffic whizzes through my frame during long exposures.

I decide to get a shot of the hill beside the trees.  Getting a decent angle requires setting up in the middle of the crossroad.  Since there isn’t a lot of traffic on this road, I go for it.  I set up and, of course, several cars come my way almost immediately.  One lady stops to ask if I’m shooting the apple trees and remarks on how pretty they are.  A man glares at me, clearly thinking I’m crazy.

I suppose it’s a little crazy to set up expensive gear in the middle of a road when it’s getting dark and I don’t have so much as a reflective jacket.  I shoot quickly and get out of the road.  I carry my tripod home feeling like I’ve just completed some rite of passage for a photographer.

Training for the Birds

Posted by dkrashb on

Over the weekend, I had my first lesson in bird handling.  While we previously met these birds of prey during a “Raptor Experience” a couple months ago, I am now learning how to handle them so I can assist during educational programs.

The first thing I learned was how to grab a handful of chopped mice and shove it into a training pouch.  This is one of those things that really makes you want to go “Ewww!” Especially when you get chunks with tails and faces attached.

First task accomplished, I now get to watch how to properly enter an enclosure.  First and foremost, there is a sort of foyer area enclosed in chicken wire that you must enter and close behind you before opening the door to the birds quarters.  Second, you don’t actually walk in with the bird in there.  Rather, you put a nice fresh chunk of mouse on your glove, stand behind the door, and hold your arm out for the bird to land on.  This way, you don’t have to worry about being “footed” in the face.  The bird lands nicely on the glove and starts eating, giving you time to secure its jesses.

The jesses are the equivalent of a collar for a dog.  They are leather thong things that go around each leg of the bird and hang down a couple inches, allowing a leash to be hooked to them that can then be secured to the glove.  They allow the handler to keep the bird from flying off, essentially.  I am warned that securing the jesses can be a vulnerable time and that Cody, the Red-tailed hawk, is known for footing people if they get their hand too close to the glove while securing the jesses.

I also learn that “footing” means talons seizing flesh.  Not a fun thing to experience, but something that happens to varying degrees of seriousness ranging from scratches to talons driven through cheeks.  None of which really sounds like something I want to try.

We fly Theo, a Barn Owl, and Kayse the Black Vulture in addition to Cody .  I practice holding my arm out to make an appropriate target, as well as securing the jesses when a bird lands on my glove.  It looks simple, but I am befuddled by how to wrap the jesses between my fingers without getting the bird’s foot caught.  Fortunately, they are patient with me.

Since I don’t have pictures of the birds, I decided to do some more night sky shooting tonight for my morning post.  I’m feeling a bit lazy after yoga class and just shoot from the balcony.  I kind of like the roof of the balcony I caught in the frame in the wide angle shots.  I also switch lenses and grab a few shots at 560mm.  I did a little more experimenting with HDR and was disappointed I couldn’t get a properly exposed moon into the shot.  I guess I will have to try again.

Springing

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The weather is playing tricks again.  Apparently, the ground hog did not see a shadow.  For President’s Day, it was as warm as a day in May with lots of sun.  Every child in the area congregated on top of the mound across the street for some good old fashioned grass sledding.

Chalk that up as one of the things I love about Chattanooga–instead of clinging to the hope that they might get to sled 1x a decade when it snows, they slide down grass covered slopes on pieces of cardboard.

The warm weather got the birds all riled up again.  I’m surprised they haven’t given up after having been teased so many times by warm weather.  But they are singing with vigor, seemingly sure that this time, it really is spring.

The robins, towhees, cardinals, wrens, and song sparrows seem to be having a sing off of some kind when Tisen and I take our morning walk.  As I try to spot a particularly loud wren, the large white rump of a flicker flashes by as one flies up into the trees.  I watch mourning doves zoom by–I am always surprised by the speed and agility they exhibit once they are in flight compared to the awkward slowness of them near the ground.

Perhaps it’s the addition of the song of the blue birds that make me think it’s really spring.  While the blue birds have been around all winter, they’ve been lurking silently waiting for the right moment to burst into song.  It seems today was the day.

Whether Tisen notices the bird songs or not is hard to say.  But he definitely has the same spring fever.  By the end of the day, when we take our last walk before the sun sets, as we walk by a long grassy slope down to the wetland, his legs bend and he plops down in the grass much like a horse.  Then he flips onto his back and kick his legs for all he’s worth.  He scootches around on his back, scratching what itches and sliding his way part way down the hill.  I start to think he’s spent too much time watching the kids sledding.

Each time I think he’s done when we get to another grassy area, he flops down again, repeating the process.  His black/brindle spots are looking more green/brindle with the grass clinging to him.  I do my best to capture him on my iPhone, but I need a longer leash to get a good angle.

After finally convincing him to leave the park, Tisen bounces along with a new spring in his step.  It’s like all he needed to know it was spring was a good roll in grass still holding the heat from a warm day of sunshine.  His antics have put a new spring in my step as well.  On the way home, I contemplate how I can take Tisen sledding on our next sunny day.

Wishing for Winter

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This evening, I take Tisen out for his evening stroll.  We head across the street, dodging cars that refuse to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk with a green walk light.  This is a curious thing about Chattanooga.  No matter how much infrastructure they build to support pedestrians, the drivers still try to run them over.  I frequently end up stopped half way in the crosswalk waiting for the cars who are turning to realize they need to stop.

I usually give up and try to dive in front of a car where there is enough room for them to stop and the driver appears to be at least paying attention to what’s directly in front of them.  It’s a little dangerous, but after several weeks of this, I’ve found a few more drivers are watching for pedestrians and yielding.  Sometimes it just takes an accidental death to get traffic problems resolved.  🙂

Having made it safely across the street, we make our way down the sidewalk.  Tisen spots a strange mix-breed dog coming towards us, about 50 yards away.  Tisen crouches lower, juts his head out level with his shoulders, and his muzzle appears to have shape-shifted into the shape of a wolf’s.  If I didn’t know any better, I would think I was walking a border collie.  When the bizarre mix (he looks like a golden retriever with a pug’s head) gets closer, Tisen lunges with growly barks.  This is a first!  I think perhaps it is due to the strangeness of the dog.  But then we pass a chocolate lab puppy who is being a typical silly, playful pup and Tisen does a complete repeat performance.

I don’t know what changed between yesterday and today to make him behave so differently.  I keep thinking the longer it’s been since he was neutered, the less aggressive he’ll be, but I’m guessing whatever hormonal effect there will be has already happened.  I consider the possibility that it’s seasonal.  After all, we’ve had ridiculously warm weather for at least a week straight now.  Maybe his body thinks it’s spring.

While I am usually longing for spring this time of year, I find myself longing for winter instead.  Not out of hope it might settle Tisen down, but, in part, because it’s harder to appreciate the spring fully when you haven’t gone through a long, cold winter.  And, to be honest, I’m already tired of swatting mosquitos.  I do not want to think about what the insect population is going to be like if we don’t have any more cold weather this year.  I can only hope the bird, bat, and dragonfly populations keep pace.

Since I cannot take any photos of snow and ice, I decide to pull out some old ones.  Here are some shots from the Canadian Rockies in Jasper National Park, Alberta.  The high temperature our first day there on that trip was -15 Fahrenheit.  Now that is winter.

Rescuing a Heron

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I woke up at 3AM, pinned under the covers by the weight of a sleeping dog and too content with him by my side to move him.  I eventually squirmed my way out, managing to heed the call of nature without waking either my husband or my dog.  But when I returned to bed, I was left out in the cold.  I think I got another half an hour of sleep before finally getting up at 6AM.

In those 3 hours, Tisen moved only if chasing something in his dreams and Pat snored quietly, marking the time.

I get Tisen walked, fed, and into his create in time for me to get to the gym.  We are using the create when I go to the gym.  Tisen rather likes his crate with his new bed and collection of squeaky toys–we’re getting close to trying going out to dinner again.

After the gym, I buckle down to work and try to focus.  It goes like this:

  1. Start to work on presentation
  2. Think, “I need the dates in that email from yesterday”
  3. Open inbox, see 18 unread messages have arrived in the past 5 minutes.  Start reading and responding to each one, opening files until there are 40 files open and 16 applications running.
  4. Remember I was looking for an email for my presentation, I return to the inbox to find new messages and start over again–I’m in danger of an endless loop.
  5. A reminder it’s time for my first conference call pops up and interrupts my interruption.
  6. Remember I was trying to get my presentation done before my first conference call.
  7. Look at calendar for meetings I can cancel later in the day.

In the midst of this, Pat returns from Tisen’s second walk and reports he spotted a Great Blue Heron with a broken wing.  I start juggling phones with the conference call in one ear and a call to S.O.A.R. in the other.

Pat is able to meet John (from SOAR).  When my morning conference calls end and Tisen insists he needs to go out, we are able to check on the heron rescue progress.  We arrive as Pat dives into the bushes with a large butterfly net, just missing the heron.  I get out my iPhone and snap a few pics.

John catches the heron moments later.  John asks me to remove a stick from its mouth.  I reach out and gently pull the stick free, hoping it will be a little more comfortable.  This poor bird has exposed bone where its wing has snapped and bent backwards.  John will take it to a licensed bird rehabilitator, but he doesn’t seem optimistic.

Much later, John’s wife, Dale, tells me the heron had to be euthanized.  I am sad this one could not be saved.  But, I am happy there are people like John and Dale to make sure if there is a chance a bird will survive, the bird will get it.

Now, I need to finish that presentation . . .

Catch the Moon

Posted by dkrashb on

I have been using the moon as a model a lot, but I find it is not as cooperative as I expected.  While, like a model, it’s a heavenly body, unlike a model, it presents itself on a predictable schedule.  As such, you would think it would be easy to schedule a shoot.  However, I have learned that a) there is such a thing as cloud cover, b) the moon doesn’t always rise before I go to bed, c) the moon often rises out of sight from where I am looking.

As a result, I have started to worry more about missing the shots of the moon rising behind the Walnut Street bridge in August.  I now wonder if perhaps that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I missed.

Now that I have a lunar calendar that tells me what time the moon rises, a good tripod, and the ideal composition in mind, I just need the moon to return to it’s former position in the sky.  In doing a little research, I found www.photoephemeris.com for planning outdoor shoots in advance and even tools to figure out where the moon will rise and the path it will travel.  (Maybe we can all be Ansel Adams after all?)

However, this doesn’t answer my question as to how long it will be before the moon rises in the same location.  I am having some troubles finding an answer to this.  I have found articles on the difference in appearance of the moon at apogee vs perigee, the repeating cycle of maxima and minima delineation that takes 18 1/2 years, and calculating the differences in brightness, but I still can’t find how long it takes for the moon to rise in the same location.  I’m guessing that it will repeat within my lifetime, but probably not soon.  In the meantime, I keep watching the moon when it chooses to show itself and looking for opportunities to shoot it rising.

The shot here is a full moon rising through clouds, shot with my iPhone (which was convinced it needed to flash) from a rest area while driving back to Chattanooga from Columbus.  While this looks more like something I might, say, paint during a continuing education class on impressionist painting, I am still impressed by the improvements in the iPhone camera from the 3GS to the 4S–just don’t expect to get good landscape photos at night.

I am particularly impressed with the LCD flash on the iPhone 4S.  I was a little surprised by how brightly it flashed when I took a picture, but when I discovered the flashlight app now has a setting that lets you turn on the LCD light continuously to use it as a flashlight, I was amazed.  I was able to find my workout clothes in the dark this morning and successfully determined the difference between black and dark purple.  If you haven’t upgraded, it’s time.