Once the magic smoke comes out, it won't work any more.
John Kasunich
jmkasunich@fastmail.fm
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Thu, 08 May 2008
I went to the park Sunday. Spring is finally here to stay I think. There were lots of small flowers (most less than 3/4" across) and I had fun with my 70-300mm macro lens.
One of the neatest sights was leaves just getting ready to explode out of their buds. This is one of my favorite photos - the fine silky fibers make the leaf seem almost like a butterfly trying to break out of its cocoon.
On another branch I got several leaves in various stages of blossoming.
A little way down the path I was surprised by a large dragonfly - I think of them summer insects. It settled on a plant just long enough for me to grab a quick shot, then went flying again. Another one joined it, a mating dance maybe? In any case they never stayed in one place long enough for me to get another shot.
After a couple hours I wound up beside a pond not far from where I parked. I noticed a turtle had climbed out of the pond onto a log to bake in the sun:
While I was taking its picture, another one climbed out:
And then a third (the first one is out of the picture to the left).
Turtle number three hadn't even made it out of the water when number four showed up:
And then there were five:
Still an empty spot on the log, so turtle number six made himself comfortable:
I like this shot - I'm not sure why they are sticking their necks out and up, but it looks funny.
(posted: 08 May 2008 23:19) (permalink)
Mon, 31 Mar 2008
March in northern Ohio is still winter, but bird activity is starting to pick up. I took a couple walks in the woods over the weekend and got some nice pictures.
One tree was very popular with woodpeckers. Both male and female Hairy and Downy woodpeckers. I don't know which these are - I got photos of both but the others didn't come out so nice.
In addition to birds, I saw some ferns clinging to a steep hillside, and some kind of seeds left over from fall.
I think the last photo is my favorite
(posted: 31 Mar 2008 21:40) (permalink)
Tue, 25 Dec 2007
Christmas day was cold but sunny, so I went for a walk in the woods in the North Chagrin Metropark. This time of year most things are shades of gray and brown, but not everything. Below is a close up of the moss growing on a dead log. The purple pods on red stalks are spore capsules - the closest thing moss has to flowers. The stalks are only an inch or two high, but with the bright green moss they made a nice show of color on a drab background of dead leaves.
Winter in Ohio means bright red male cardinals. This one was shy, and wouldn't move out of the deep brush. But I like this shot anyway.
The obligatory icicle shot, to prove that yes, it is cold
Someone had built a small lean-to of branches a little way off one of the paths, facing a stand of dense brush. I sat down there and waited quietly, and was rewarded by a pair of deer who walked past less then fifty feet away. They alerted to my movement when I aimed the camera, but seemed more curious than worried.
As I was leaving the woods, I noticed a lump up in a tree. At first I thought it was a squirrel nest - a blob of twigs and leaves. But it was too smooth, and as I got closer I realised that it was a hawk, with his head hunched down and his feathers fluffed up to keep warm. As I took a couple shots, he seemed to wake up, and eventually flew off. This was the best one.
(posted: 25 Dec 2007 21:30) (permalink)
Sun, 14 Oct 2007
I went to the North Chagrin Metropark this afternoon. I was hoping to get pictures of squirrels or some other critters. I wandered for a while without seeing anything - there were a lot of people around, and mid-day isn't ideal critter time. I did get a nice picture of some leaves on a ledge at Buttermilk Falls.
I eventually made my way over to the pond. There is always something there, and today it was ducks. Mallards, of course (this one just finished splashing water all over himself):
And wood ducks, female:
and male:
I got lucky and captured a few "action shots", one duck apparently scratching his chin, and another stretching his wings.
Later I spotted a much bigger bird. The Great Blue Heron was on the far side of the pond, but I did get one decent shot.
(posted: 14 Oct 2007 23:54) (permalink)
Fri, 28 Sep 2007
The sun was shining and I wanted to go take some pictures, but where? I fired up Google Maps and looked for a green spot not too far from home. I found Kenneth J. Sims Park in Euclid. On the way there I saw a pretty sky and stopped to take a few shots.
I got to the park as the sun was going down. There was a pretty strong breeze, so the lake was quite lively. I took the usual shot after shot after shot, then picked a couple nice ones for here.
(posted: 28 Sep 2007 22:50) (permalink)
Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Fairport Harbor on a stormy day
The evening of September 11 we had some dramatic skies, as strong winds from the west were bringing in a storm. I went out to Fairport Harbor (map) to see if I could get some nice photos. By the time I arrived the sun had been eclipsed by fast moving clouds. The pics below show the view to the west and to the north:
Fairport Harbor has two lighthouses. The first lighthouse was built on the hill in 1825 and rebuilt in 1871. It was decomissioned in 1925, and is now a museum. The 1925 replacement was built on the breakwall and is still operating.
Usually the museum is closed in the evenings, but there was some kind of private party scheduled for later that evening, so they stayed open late and I was able to go up the tower. The whole lighthouse was whistling and moaning as the wind blew around it. Most of the photos that I took from the top were hopelessly blurry because of the wind, even though I was crouched down and braced the camera against the railing. (I had a tripod with me, but if I had tried to set it up it would have been blown away.) The best of the batch are below.
The stairs inside the tower are cast iron.
Another shot of the breakwall and new lighthouse, from the ground. In good weather, people fish from the wall. Not today.
(posted: 12 Sep 2007 20:13) (permalink)
Mon, 03 Sep 2007
Saturday I took my camera to the Air Show. I watched from the deck of the William G. Mather, a former iron ore hauler, now a museum ship. The air show flies out of Burke Lakefront Airport, and most of the demonstrations are centered on a point about half way down the main runway. The Mather is docked about 4000 feet away from that point, but its stern is only about 200 feet off the runway center-line and planes on final approach get very close. (Aerial photo of the Mather and the airport)
I was running a little late, and arrived just as the Navy F18 was finishing its exhibition flight. I saw the end of the Navy "Heritage Flight", as the F18 flew in formation with a World War II Corsair fighter. The only photo I was able to get was as the F18 came in to land.
(click on photos to enlarge - images range from 150K to 400K each)
The next thing in the air was a C-130 Hercules transport. It took off, did a couple orbits of the field, and landed. Although we couldn't hear the PA announcer at the show, I think they were demonstrating its ability to land on short fields. The landing run was VERY short. (According to Wikipedia, in 1963 a C-130 successfully landed and took off from the carrier USS Forrestal, stopping after only 267 feet.)
The C-130 was followed by three Life-Flight helicopters from a local Hospital, and by a TS-11 "Iskra", a jet trainer used by the Polish Air Force. (No Polish jokes please!)
The next several performers were aerobatic pilots flying propeller driven planes. Because of their relatively low speed and tight turns, they stay close to the center of the show. From 4000 feet away even a 300mm lens can't bring them close. Most of the following pics have been heavily cropped and don't have much detail.
The aerobatics guys seem to really like to fly straight up until they run out of airspeed, stall, and seemingly fall out of the sky.
I never saw a software company as an airshow sponsor before, but I guess it was inevitable. It's uncommon to see two very different planes flying in formation.
After the slow planes finished, it was time for the F-15 demonstration flight. Lots of high-g turns, lots of afterburners, and a vertical climb from near the deck to virtually out of sight in about 30 seconds. What goes up must come down, so a vertical dive followed.
As the F-15 was winding up its performance, it was joined by a Korean War era F86 Sabrejet, for the Air Force "Heritage Flight".
I got a couple solo shots of the F-86 as it was coming in to land, and looking at them later I was surprised to see that the pilot had opened the canopy in flight. I guess he decided it was sunroof weather.
Another round of aerobatics followed, and then an Army helicopter team flying four Apaches. They stayed very close to the flight line, and I didn't get any decent pictures. Also no photos of the Golden Knights skydivers - tiny spots in the sky aren't very photogenic.
The last act of the day was the Thunderbirds.
Planes 1 through 4 spend almost the entire performance in the tight diamond formation. They generally do big sweeping maneuvers like loops, barrel rolls and smooth banked turns, at a variety of speeds, including the "dirty diamond" pass. made at very low speed with landing gear deployed. In the second photo below, you can see that the pilots of the #2 and #3 planes have their eyes locked on #1. During most of the show they don't even look at their surroundings. (The numbers are visible on the sides of the air intakes.)
While #1 through #4 are flying in tight formation, #5 and #6 do solo and pair maneuvers. They do the more aggressive moves that can't be done in formation, such as snap rolls, high-g turns, and afterburner vertical climbs. The first photo below shows a high-g turn. The trails at the wingtips and the clouds at the leading edge of the wing roots are caused by water vapor condensing due to a sudden drop in pressure. The strong vortexes at the leading edge strakes are a significant source of lift at high angles of attack.
In the last photo above, note that the 5 on the intake is upside down. That's so you can read it during the "mirror-image" passes, as seen below.
Eventually the #5 and #6 pilots do join up with the diamond. The photo below was assembled from five shots taken over an interval of ten seconds, showing the solos joining the diamond to make the six-plane delta formation. The full size version of the image has time-stamps; at the beginning of the sequence the solos are closing at about fifty feet per second. During the entire join-up, the formation is in a steeply banked turn out over the lake.
The next three photos show the delta formation beginning a big loop, flying inverted just past the top of the loop, and level again after finishing it.
(posted: 03 Sep 2007 21:22) (permalink)
Thu, 09 Aug 2007
On Saturday I posted a couple photos I shot of a flaming natural gas line, the result of an auto accident. Today I picked up the local weekly paper and one of my pictures was on the front page. Kinda cool. The story (minus picture) is on the newspaper's website. Fortunately the driver (a 17 year old girl) wasn't seriously hurt. Gas, electric, phone, and cable service for the neighborhood was out for a while though.
(posted: 09 Aug 2007 22:01) (permalink)
Sat, 04 Aug 2007
Saturday I planned another trip to the mouth of Euclid Creek, this time with my new camera and a tripod. I was aiming to get there well before sunset, but I got distracted on the way. It seems somebody managed to hit an underground gas line with their car.
I took the pictures above at 7:01 and 7:05 pm. The firefighters must have just started spraying, because in the 7:01 photo the water has just started running down the street, and in the 7:05 one it has made it much farther. I'm guessing that the accident happened somewhere around 6:45. Apparently turning off the gas isn't easy to do, because on my way back from the beach at nearly 10:00 pm it was still going.
I arrived at the beach late, after the sun had gone down. Although it was too dark for handheld shooting, there were some nice clouds in the sky, with lots of color. Since I had a tripod, and a camera capable of multi-second manual expostures, I took a bunch of shots anyway. Most were so-so, but I'm quite happy with this one.
(posted: 04 Aug 2007 23:13) (permalink)
Sat, 28 Jul 2007
I took a nice walk in the North Chagrin Metropark this evening. I started at the parking lot on SOM Center Road across from Parkview, and walked east along a paved path. A hundred yards or so in I watched a pair of deer wandering to the northwest. Unfortunately by the time I got the camera out they were getting too deep into the brush to get decent pics. After another hundred yards or so I turned southeast onto a smaller path through dense woods, which crossed this creek...
Then the path went across a stretch of fairly open meadow toward the pond/swamp. Found some nice plants around the pond...
And some others in the pond...
Plants weren't the only thing in the pond. Wood and Mallard ducks were swimming around, seemingly oblivious to the relatively large crowds of people.
Since I came in the "back way" I was rather surprised at how many people were around the pond. Then I found out that the park was having a Nature at Night event. Lots of kids walking around with little blinking lights hanging around their necks. As the light faded, bats started flying around eating bugs. I know better than to even try to capture bats in flight with a camera in dim light, so I just relaxed and enjoyed watching them fly. Some were very bold, flying below head height and only a few feet away.
As part of the event, there were rangers at various locations talking about and in some cases showing various night critters. One ranger had a screech owl, about 10 years old. It was too dark to capture it by natural light, but after asking if it was OK to use a flash, I took one shot:
(posted: 28 Jul 2007 23:52) (permalink)