ApertureRing

Here are some new shots from my latest trip to the Magic Wings Butterfly House at the Museum of Life and Sciences in Durham.

Fishkill Farms Apple Orchard, Hopewell JCT, NY

One of my favorite fall activities is Apple Picking and it’s hard to avoid it when your are in the Hudson Valley. This fall I happened to be up in NY visiting family during harvest time, so I wasn’t going to go home without picking some apples. I stopped by one of my favorite local orchards, Fishkill Farms, as several of my friends were working there. While there I got some apples, cider and best of all fresh Cider Doughnuts! Fishkill Farms is nestled in a valley between several small mountains and is very picturesque. Here are some shots I took while at the farm.

An article I published on Assiteague Island along with Photos I have taken of the Wild Ponies there was recently choosen as a Treasure of the Day winner in the HubPages Marks the Spot Contest. This article is now up for the Best of the Week Award.

Please Cast your Vote in the Best of the Week Contest.

Last year I adopted two Degus from a friend who had a litter of babies. I had wanted a Degu for several years, so I was thrilled to bring them home.

Degus are rodents, similar to a gerbil, but a little larger. They eat chinchilla pellets and a lot of hay.

While I had my backdrop setup for an upcoming shoot I brought one of the Degus out and decided it was time to put  them in front of the camera. As can be expected, it would not simply sit in the middle of the backdrop and let me click away. I was easily able to get some nice shots using my beautiful wife acting as a hand model. I also captured a great shot of the Degu by placing it on top of a box of oats, which are one of it’s favorite treats. 

To Learn more About Degus, Read my article on What is a Degu?

New Article Posted on: How to Make HDR Photos.

For those of you who liked my picture of the MidHudson Bridge from inside the Stone walkway and would like to know how this image was made I have posted an article on creating HDR Images.  This article details the process that I used to create this image.

How to Make Your Own HDR Photos

An Pony on the beach of Assateague Island

I had intended to go to Washington DC for the weekend to take pictures of the Cherry Blossom Festival. But at the last minute I decided to change my plans and go to Chincoteague Island.

I booked a room at the Blue Heron Inn which was right next to Maddox Campground, where I spent many summer vacations as a child.

The island is a relaxing refuge from the regular hussle and bussle of life. I had almost forgotten how different life there was until I got a phone call from the Inn’s manager letting me know that the front desk was closing shortly and wanted to know if I was still going to be arriving that night. As I was still over an hour away they graciously offered to leave the key in an envelope for me. When I arrived I was able to let myself in for the night and formally check-in the next morning.

Chincoteague Island sits right on the Maryland side of the Virginia Maryland border. The island is best known for their wild ponies. Each year the fireman hold an annual pony swim. The wranglers, known as the Saltwater Cowboys, round up all of the wild ponies and they swim across the Assaeteague Channel to Chincoteague where they are penned up, counted and auctioned.

I have many found memories of the wild ponies as a child. You used to be able to drive around the traffic circle and they would walk right up to your car window and stick their heads in. When I got to town this time there were no ponies in sight. Early the first morning we headed over to Chincoteague’s sister island, Assaeteague Island, which spans the Maryland Virgina border. Assaeteague Island is a nature refuge that the ponies run free on.

First we visited the Assaeteague lighthouse and hiked to the top to get a nice view of the island. Next, we got back in our car and headed over to the beach. On our way we saw our first ponies, but they were penned up far off the path way. A little further down we saw the fireman’s corral with the saltwater cowboys ponies. Finally we made our way to the beach and we went into the visitor’s center where I spoke to one of the park rangers about the ponies. Their are two separate herds of the ponies, one on the Maryland side of the island which is maintained by the Chincoteague Fire Company and another on the Virginia side that is managed by the National Park Service. Because of problems with human interaction, the ponies on the Maryland side have been forced to fence the ponies up to keep them away from the roadways. However, the Virginia herd is still allowed to free roam their side of the island. So we  decided to make the trek up to the Virginia side the next day.

It was well worth the trip to the Virgina side of Assaeteague. When we got to the beach we were greated by 3 of the wild ponies on the pathway up to the beach. One of the ponies had made it’s way onto the dunes where it was grazing on the sparse grass that it could find. Apparently he could not read the stay off the dunes sing. I got to take many photographs of the ponies that day and the next day I reluctantly returned home.

The beach on Assateague Island

Another of shot of the Pony on the sand dune

In addition to the Wild Ponies, the Island is also a refuge for many birds.

The Mid Hudson Bridge (Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge) is an often used symbol of the Hudson Valley. This majestic suspension bridge connects Poughkeepsie and Highland New York. At the center of the bridge proudly hangs a large American flag. The bridge is illuminated at night by colored lights, which can be seen from drivers on route 9. The patterns of the lights are changed throughout the year with different themes.

Parallel to the bridge is a historic railroad bridge. The railroad bridge was recently converted to a Walkway Over the Hudson. Several years ago, during the restoration process I got the chance to go on the railroad bridge to take photographs. The opening of the new walkway was part of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the Hudson River.

Another part of the celebrations was Bridge Music, a music project by a friend and mentor Joseph Bertolozzi. Bridge Music is a compilation of songs that were composed entirely of sounds produced by the bridge. With assistance from the bridge authority, he collected recordings from various parts of the bridge from the suspension cables to inside of the towers. After amassing a large library of sounds, he composed them into a number of distinct songs.

Last spring I stopped by Waryes Park, which is right at the base of the bridge. It was the first warm weekend and the ice had started to melt and there was a strong ice flow. On that day I captured these photographs of a tug boat pushing a barge up the river towards Albany.

This past weekend while my friends and family were digging out from Snowicane 2010 and hoping to get power back, I was out taking pictures of flowers at Plant Delights. Plant Delights is a Nursery in Raleigh, NC with a Juniper Level Botanic Gardens. Several times during the year the year they hold an open house, where anyone can tour their gardens and greenhouses.

These are some of the photos I took while walking around their immaculately maintained grounds.

These photographs are from my trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. After several weeks of cold and snow, we had a nice sunny and relatively warm weekend. Of course no trip to Myrtle Beach is complete without going to the beach and seeing the ocean. So before I headed back home I stopped by the beach to take some photographs.

As it was February there were not many people on the beach, although there were a lot of seagulls. After taking photographs  of the seagulls for about a half an hour the sun started to go down and I was able to capture these shots of a beautiful ocean sunset.

These are photos that I took of some Crested Wood Partridges. These birds are native to the SouthEast Asia. They are near threatened because of habitat loss.

The male Crested Wood Partriges have a bright Red Crest or Crown on the top of their heads and has darker feathers than the female.

The female Crested Wood Partridge dose not have crest, but has more brightly colored feathers on her body.

The background of these images were converted to grayscale to emphisize the beautiful coloring of these partridges feathers.