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| Zinnia |
I love the macro setting on the new camera.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Greensboro, NC. September 2010
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| Lake Brandt from the A&Y Greenway |
Greensboro is developing a long abandoned railroad track, the Atlantic and Yadkin line, into its only Rail to Trail pathway. This portion runs along the northern shoreline of Lake Brandt, about six miles from my house.
Here's a little history of the A&Y railroad:
The Atlantic-Yadkin Railway's lifespan covered 1899 to 1950, but some of the rails were laid in the 19th century as part of the Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railway (CF & YV). The CF & YV ran from the Atlantic port of Wilmington, NC to Mount Airy. This railway transported mostly granite and at one time took travelers to visit the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Groundhog Mountain, Virginia. September 2010
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| Post and Peg Fencing along the Blue Ridge Parkway |
I resurrected this photo out of my recycle bin after I found this info online:
Traditionally, farm fences had four to six horizontal members of approximately 11 feet. Soft, second growth wood was expected to last around 5 years. Early farmers, building for the future, insisted on virgin wood. Old growth chestnut was plentiful in the Appalachian Range and was the wood of choice. Other parts of the country relied on cedar and locust. Today, the replacement wood rails and posts along the Blue Ridge Parkway are treated poplar.
Post and Stake (Also called Virginia Stake and Rail): This fence is built with two upright members of different sizes planted firmly in the ground in intervals to accommodate the length of the rails. Uprights hold the ends of the horizontal split rails that can be wired together for additional strength and longevity. This fence is often the style of choice on uneven or sloping terrain.
Post and Peg: Post and Peg requires two vertical stakes (as in the post and stake style) ) secured by a hand hewn “peg” for each horizontal rail to rest upon. It is no longer used.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Chincoteague Island, Virginia. October 2009
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| City Marina |
Like all young girls, I fell in love with Marguerite Henry and her horse books especially Misty of Chincoteague. I read and re-read the story of the Beebe family, Pony Penning Days and, of course, Misty.
I am fortunate enough that Chincoteague and Assateague Islands are just seven hours away from Greensboro. I’ve been there three times – always during the off-season when the island is quiet and peaceful. To stand on the sidewalks of the small downtown area is to go back to how it must have been when Marguerite Henry first visited in 1946. With the exception of the drawbridge, it remains the same.
Chincoteague Island’s residents still earn their living mostly by fishing. City Marina is where all the commercial boats tie up at night after being out on the Atlantic Ocean.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Greensboro, NC. September 2010
From Wikipedia.org:
Nasturtium (literally "nose-twister" or "nose-tweaker"), as a common name, refers to a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Tropaeolum.
They have showy, often intensely bright flowers (the intense color can make macrophotography quite difficult), and rounded, peltate (shield-shaped) leaves with the petiole in the center. The flowers have five petals (sometimes more), a three-carpelled ovary, and a funnel-shaped nectar tube in the back.
I found it interesting that the article says that photographing it using a macro lens is difficult. Maybe this turned out OK as the color is orange and not the bright red of my other nasturtiums.
This photograph is for Carolina in the Netherlands, a new blogger friend, who posted a wonderful picture of a yellow rose which you can find here - Brinkbeestphotos. She also has another blog where she writes about her life and about a country that I visited for a week and fell in love with: Brinkbeest in English. I thought I had a yellow rose photo to compliment hers, but the best I could do was the orange nasturtium.
And as for the photos from the Blue Ridge Parkway? Well, now I understand why professional photographers go on and on about light. The light was hard and harsh and so all 164 photos ended up in the recycle bin.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Greensboro, NC. September 2010
One more picture of the leading edge of cloud cover from Hurricane Earl.
This is looking south from the marina at Lake Brandt down towards my house. However, you won't see my house or any houses for that matter as Lake Brandt is part of our city's reservoir system and provides our municipal water. There is a 500 yard buffer zone to help protect the quality of the water.
This is the second of three lakes which comprises our watershed. Lake Higgins is the smallest and feeds in Brandt which then feeds into Townsend like stair steps. Greensboro has turned the buffer areas around these lakes into city parks with trails for hikers and mountain bikers. I'll post pictures later from some of these trails.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Greensboro, NC. September 2010
I’ve progressed from Simple mode to Program mode. Baby steps with this camera. I’ll try out the other functions this weekend - the aperture, shutter and exposure settings up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We're going (hopefully) in the opposite direction of the Labor Day vacationers, most of whom are traveling to the beach. I’m still trying to understand how the manual mode works, so it will be some time before I post photos that I have shot manually.
This is the leading edge of Hurricane Earl as it comes near the Outer Banks (this was taken around 7:30 pm Thursday). We are much too far away from the coast (200+ miles) to see any rain or have any wind. The cloud cover is the most we will get. I am hoping that a professional photographer in New York, Vincent Mounier, whose blog I follow will be able to post pictures of how he has been affected by this storm. Here is the link to his blog: http://www.vincentmounier.com/blog2/.
This is taken at the Lake Brandt marina which is just down the street from my house.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Holden Beach, NC. February 2010
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| Sunset |
The picture I posted on Tuesday showed Holden Beach at sunset the night before a strong storm came through. The old saying about "red sky at night, sailors' delight" certainly didn't hold true.
This is more typical of a sunset on the beach. Holden Beach is an atypical coastal island; it runs east and west instead of north and south. If it ran north and south, my picture would be of the three- and four-story cottages at sunset and not as appealing as this photo.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Chincoteague Island, Virginia. October 2009
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| Trumpeter Swan |
| This trumpeter swan caused quite a stir among birders when it showed up on Chincoteague. It was way out of its normal range - tundra swans pass through Chincoteague and the Virginia Eastern Shore during migration, but not trumpeters. A local birder passed the listserv info along to me when I was trying to figure out what type of swan this was. |
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Greensboro, NC. August 2010
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| "Cinco de Mayo" Rose |
The first photo using the new camera. It may be a while for another one as I'm just shooting in the simple mode; I'm still intimidated by all the options.
