Autumn beginning: the cloud

Autumn beginning: the cloud, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

More through-the-windshield infrared. I wanted to scream: stop the car! It was raining and there was no roadside big enough to get off the road. This cloud could almost make me believe in heaven.

Corn is Beautiful

Corn is Beautiful, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Standing corn next to the Waldron Fen Nature Preserve. More infrared. All the time we were walking past, a flock of Yellow-rump warblers seasoned with a few palm warblers were flitting into the few rows nearest the edge. Of course, they might just have been avoiding the birders, but maybe they found insects in the corn, too. Someone said he thought there were bugs in the tassels, but the birds I saw were flying about a foot lower than that. Another mystery.

The Pond's Dark Waters

The Pond's Dark Waters, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

I am just learning how to do this, but I love the results. You can make any weedpatch or clump of trees look world-class, I think. I took these pictures with my infrared camera, a Fujifilm Finepix F30. I got it on eBay; there are quite a few companies that convert them to be able to see infrared light, which is outside the visible spectrum. With any converted camera that enables you to set a custom white balance, you can avoid most of the the color cast. Otherwise they are sort of pink, or blue if you choose a tungsten white balance. After conversion, the camera is only good for these pictures. They are still RGB files, but look monotone.
There are two problems with the unprocessed files besides the possible color cast. One is a slight softness of the image, which hasn't bothered me with landscapes (or you can sharpen); the other is that the range of values nearly ALWAYS needs to be increased. It is very easy to do in Picasa, if you feel lazy. That's the way I did this, which I took on this morning's birdwalk. There are probably better ways to do it in Photoshop. I will work on a few things later and more intensely--when I find which images I like best. I am so excited about these ghostly white trees. And the Lake Michigan pictures I took at Sturgeon Bay earlier this month.

Autumn Deepens: This morning's meadow in infrared

DSCF0452 tuned, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

The last of the leaves is almost here. Now is the time to be outdoors, for sure.

Curve of the sand

DSCF0383 luk, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

Wallace Stevens Talks to Clouds

"Addressing Clouds is an actual address to the clouds. The gloomy grammarians and funest philosophers are the clouds themselves. What could be simpler? Of course, it all depends on the point of view. People scent symbolism as if something of their own realism and reason must, like the blood of an Englishman, be somewhere concealed. You can imagine people accustomed to potatoes studying apples with the idea that unless the apples somehow contain potatoes they are unreasonable. Such people have poignant difficulties with zinnias and pies."

from a letter to Alice Corbin Henderson, March 27, 1922.
Wallace Stevens; Collected Poetry and Prose, p. 938.

I want to go back to Sturgeon Bay! And talk to clouds . . .

Sky Over Lake Michigan

Sky Over Lake Michigan, originally uploaded by jhhymas.

I wanted a blog for just black and white photos. (The colors of my main blog don't suit them.)This is it.