The Incredible's!

From The Incredibles and me......Happy Halloween!!!!!!

Toughannock Falls NY *TRAVEL TUESDAY*

Today's blog post is another "Travel Tuesday" outside of New England. During my recent trip to the Finger Lakes Region of Upper State NY, we photographed many beautiful waterfalls. One of my favorites was Toughannock Falls.

The main fall has a 215 foot drop. It is the tallest single foot drop waterfall East of the Rocky Mountains. The waterfall is located along Toughannock Creek, which flows through a long gorge with cliffs up to 400 feet.

There is a falls overlook which is located directly off a road.

After we visited the falls from above, we drove down to the lower falls area.

Lower falls in harsh mid day light:

From the lower falls, we hiked a trail which follows the creek along the gorge. 

After about 45 minutes, we arrived at the base of the falls.

On the way out when we got back to the lower falls, there was a fly fisherman in the waterfall. Literally!

It was a perfect day!

Farm Scene Waterbury Center VT

During our off the main road travels this Fall in VT, I found this beautiful farm scene. We were there at just about the time of sunrise. The scene is wonderful......a beautiful red barn in the forefront with mountains behind.

The problem I had at this location was the fact that this a late day scene to photograph. The light is not good in the morning at this location, as the photographer will be shooting into the sun. Picture this scene in the late afternoon.....the sun would be at the photographer's back, and it would be lighting up the barn and the mountains with sweet golden light.

In this next image, you can see the sun is beginning to crest above the mountain on the right side of the frame,

I will be returning here next Fall to shoot this scene during the late day light. If my co-writer agrees, we will put this scene into the next edition of the Photographing Vermont's Fall Foliage e-book. I tend to believe he will agree!

Kaaterskill Falls NY (TRAVEL TUESDAY)

Today is Travel Tuesday here on the blog........a day where photos that have been taken outside of New England are featured.
The first stop on our 6 day NY trip was to the Catskills where we stopped to photograph Kaaterskill Falls. It was a beautiful mostly sunny day....the temperature was in the 40's, but there was a very strong biting wind at the open falls. There was a fantastic view of the falls from the top:

Here's the view looking out over the scenery:

The trail to get to the overlook was an easy 15 minute walk, with some hills but nothing strenuous. Here are a few images I made along the trail:

The roots of this tree caught my eye, along with the backlit foliage behind the tree:

Stay tuned for next week's Travel Tuesday, which will feature many images taken at Watkins Glen State Park.

Fall Foliage Greensboro Vermont Backroads

Hi there! Got home late evening from an amazing six day trip to the Finger Lakes region of NY to photograph waterfalls. Had an amazing time and have hundreds of images to go through. I'll be sharing them here on "Travel Tuesdays" so stay tuned!

I still have many photos from the VT foliage trip to share with you. Today will be showing some images taken along the back roads of Greensboro.....an area I have only really visited when I go to the Hill Farmstead Brewery. This time I decided to explore the areas beyond the brewery. It was gorgeous!

This is a barn that we pass each time we go to the brewery. I was looking forward to photographing it from the top of the hill in the Fall season. Unfortunately we had very gray boring skies on the day we were there. I plan to return next Fall on a better sky day:

Lovely view along the road:

Stumbled upon this beautiful farm scene:

One of the moments where the car comes to a screeching halt.....the colors of this tree were really this vivid. It was beautiful.

Found a pretty little sugar house that was just begging to be photographed:

A favorite thing to do is to drive up a big hill on a dirt road. When I get to the top of the hill, I turn around......and sometimes get lucky with what I see behind me......such as this gorgeous scene. Things like this make me very happy! I love the sugar maples at the top of the hill that frame the distant cabin. This right here is an example of why I love to do what I do. (Click photo for larger view)

More VT photos coming soon!

Moose Bog, Ferdinand VT

One of the most interesting adventures of my recent foliage trip to VT was a visit to Moose Bog. This is in a very remote area of the Northeast Kingdom of VT, not far from the Canadian border. It is located in a boreal forest ecosystem. Definition of a boreal forest ecosystem:

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A boreal ecosystem is an ecosystem with a subarctic climate in the Northern Hemisphere, roughly between latitude 50° to 70°N. 

  Boreal forests are also known as taiga, a Russian word which simply means swampy, moist forest. Boreal forests are coniferous and contain large amounts of evergreen trees.
Boreal forests must withstand harsh conditions, which include long, frigid winters, and short, dry summers. Plants and tree species that inhabit boreal forests have adaptations that help them tolerate such adverse conditions.

This hike has been on my radar for approximately 5 years, ever since I saw a blog post written about this location by a bird photographer that I follow. This area is home to many different species of birds, as well as moose, black bear, and deer. To get to the Moose Bog Trail, follow Rte 105 North out of Island Pond for approximately 8-10 miles. Turn right onto a dirt road (South America Pond Rd) which has a sign that reads Wenlock Wildlife Preserve. Follow the road about 1/8 mile and park in the cut out on the right hand side with a trail head sign board. Follow the trail for about 1/2-3/4 of a mile and turn left downhill to reach the boardwalk that leads you to the bog.

The boardwalk:

The bog:

What interested me the most about this area was the interesting plants that we found I've never seen a Pitcher Plant before....a Pitcher Plant is a carniverous plant which have a prey trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with liquid.

Pitcher Plant:

I also found the moss that covers the forest floor to be very interesting. In some areas, the green moss was covered in a red moss like substance. I tried to identify it but had no luck. Here is a photo I took of it......please let me know the ID of this if you know what it is called:

Other areas had this bright yellow substance growing over the moss. My research helped me to identify this as Slime Mold.

From Wikipedia:

Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms that can live freely as single cells, but can aggregate together to form multicellular reproductive structures. Slime molds were formerly classified as fungi but are no longer considered part of that kingdom.

Speaking of fungi. we came across various types of mushrooms along the trail. I initially was not photographing the mushrooms, as they typically don't interest me. But as we got further along, it became apparent to me that this wasn't the regular mushrooms you see everyday in "the woods". This was something totally different and and I wanted to capture it with my camera. 

Most of the mushrooms I am having difficulty identifying, but this one was one I could ID.

The edible Wild Red Russula Mushroom:

No, we did not eat these! Also, notice the orange mushroom to the left.

Other red mushrooms:

Yellow Mushroom:

Purple Mushroom:

Brown Bracket Fungi (I think):

Honey Fungus (I think)

We never encountered any wildlife, although we did hear a large bird flying off a perch as we were on the trail.......never saw the bird but assuming it was either an owl or some type of hawk, as the wings were very loud in flight.

This was a great walk though nature and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It certainly wasn't the typical walk through the woods.

May Pond and Windswept Farm Surprise

As mentioned in the previous blog post, the sun was elusive during this year's foliage trip to VT. One particular morning, we were on location at May Pond in Barton for a sunrise shoot. The sky was looking fantastic with a partial cloud cover that was reflecting in the still water of the pond.

It was shaping up to be a beautiful morning.....or so I thought. Within moments of taking the shot shown above, the wind kicked up and the beautiful reflections were gone, and the sky filled in with clouds which put an end to the plans of photographing the sun rise. This was time to switch to plan B. As we were milling around down at the pond, I looked uphill and noticed there were a few rays of first light that were hitting the farmhouse, sugarhouse, and maple tree above. I quickly turned my attention and camera in that direction, and the light only lasted for about 20 seconds.

First light:

We then drove up to the above farm and shot the pond below.

Adam, the owner of the farm came out to greet us, and as we were chatting, the sky to the West of us was turning dramatic with beams of strong sunlight shining on the distant hillsides. This was my "Vermont moment" of 2018. It was beautiful to see and capture with my camera, and as I was photographing the scene, I knew that these were going to be my favorite images of this Fall. Occasionally landscape photography can be a spiritual experience for me, and this was certainly one of those times. I was humbled, thankful, and felt a deep connection with God and my parents who have gone before me.

What I thought was going to be a disappointing morning (photographically) turned into an amazing experience at my favorite place in the World. Life is good!