Another trip to Bridgehampton

Decided to go back to Bridgehampton again and try 1 more time lapse. This will do it for a while now until it gets warmer and some humidity and clouds to make it more interesting. Here is the result.

I left the beach and spied an Egret in the marsh stalking it's breakfast. By the time I stopped the truck and got out with the camera it was gone. Bummer! So I decided to head back to the Sagg Swamp Preserve again and on the way what do I see but a Red Fox. You don't see many of these on Long Island I snapped these from inside the truck at a stop sign. I'm sure there was a little heat distortion going on from the open window.

He was real skeptical of me and kept watching me as he made his way closer to the woods. I made it to the preserve hoping to see the Great Blue Heron I saw there during the week.

It wasn't there, but I did manage to scare off some ducks and miss a pic (again) of deer crossing the road. I walked the preserve and checked again for some ducks or whatever may be there and snuck up on this guy.

From what I can gather this is a Red Breasted Merganser.

I really love the beauty of the Hampton's and the diversity of its wildlife. I hope these people that are flocking out there don't destroy the charm and quaintness of the area with over development and overpopulation. I watched it happen in western Suffolk County and hope that doesn't happen here.

And now, a moment of Zen.

Bridgehampton and Sagg Swamp Nature Preserve

I decided to skip the time lapse work and take a trip to the  Sagg Swamp Nature Preserve. I heard about it on a local radio show and wanted to check it out. On the way I saw this gnarly old tree on Ocean Ave. I think it's an Elm. It's huge in diameter and probably predates the town of Bridgehampton itself. Compare it to the sidewalk to the left in the photo.

I continued on to the preserve and as I was pulling up, 3 deer ran across the road into the preserve. I saw 2 more in the woods waiting to come across and were checking me out. I had the camera in hand but wanted the zoom lense. As I was fumbling with the lens they scampered across the road. I could swear one of them flipped me the bird. I tried to track them only for a picture but they were too sharp for me and the brush was extremely thick off the trail which I would not venture from. I did get some interesting shots though and want to return when it's a little warmer.

This is outside the preserve where it empties out into a bay.

This is the other side inside the preserve. I didn't even see the duck until I blew up the picture to full size on the monitor.

This is part of a greenbelt that extends all the way to Sag Harbor. According to the radio broadcast, it's one of several swamps formed by the glaciers in the ice age when they receded. It's a beautiful place, I cant wait to see it in the spring when there are leaves on the trees and the birds are back to nest.
       This next shot is of a huge Rodedendrun hedge that is at least 15 feet high. I was lucky enough to see this in the height of it's bloom last summer. I want to capture it with the camera this year.

Latest time lapse

I kept waiting for a clear day and finally I got one but to be honest, it was a little boring. This is what I got. It would have been longer if the workers repairing the storm damage to the beach didn't decide to pull riight in front of the camera and park. Nimrod. 

More time lapse

I went back to the same beach two days in a row and shot some more time lapse. This time I set the interval to 6 seconds and compiled at 24 frames per second. It came out a little smoother. I think my next one will be 5 seconds at 30 frames a second but it will take more photos to get the same amount of video length. Each of these time lapse compress about 50 minutes into 17 seconds. It was cold as, well, it was cold. This one has some cool effects with layers of clouds moving in different directions. I didn't see it when I was shooting it but looks cool in time lapse.

Sunrise and optomism

In my younger days I was a milkman. Yes, glass bottles delivered before dawn. I saw many, many, sunrises and feel there is something special about them more so than a sunset. First off, everyone usually sees the sunsets but few see the sunrises. Instead of light fading to dark, darkness gives way to light which, to me, brings an optomism with the start of the new day that just isn't there with sunsets. Having just gotten my camera the day before I was treated to one of mother natures fireworks shows the very next morning. I of course, had my camera with me. I just wish I had a better understanding of the controls. I was driving into the east and decided to jump off the highway before I completely lost the lightshow going on as I drove. If you can believe it, 10 minutes before this it was 10 times more spectacular with more vivid pinks and blues. It looked like alternating ribbons of illuminated cotton candy accross the sky. I was lucky enough to snap this.

I started travelling to work with my point and shoot cheapo camera over a year ago, but whenever I saw a sky like this, it would automatically adjust the exposure and bleach out any kind of meaningful effect. I just gave up trying to capture the image. Given my fascination with clouds and art I hope to capture more like this and eventually try to paint it on a canvas. I doubt I could ever duplicate this kind of shear beauty, but it will be fun to try. 

I've been a little busy

It never seems to fail. I went from having too much time on my hands from an unexpected layoff to working full time with many hours of overtime for the past 9 months. Believe me, I am not complaining. It doesn't however, provide time for the things I like to do to feed the creative person inside of me who is feeling a little neglected lately. Given that I work in the paradise that is the south fork of Long Island and am surrounded by nature all day, I figured I would treat myself to a new fangled digital SLR camera. I have wanted one for years and thought it would help with my artwork. I also used to dabble in photography and astrophotography back in the 80's. What I didn't realize was you can do time lapse photography with these cameras very easily. I wanted to catch the sunrise this morning given it was the end of the moons cycle and there was just a slither of moon before sunrise. So at O dark thirty in the morning, off to the beach I went. This image is what it looked like when I got there.

You can see a slither of the moon in the right side of the sky. I then set up the intervalometer to take an image every 12 seconds. I got 434 usable images in succession and at 30 frames a second it yielded 16 seconds of video. Unfortunately, as the sun rose so did the cloud cover but it was still pretty cool. Here is my first attempt. I'm sure there will be more.

It all started with the want of a Mahl stick

 I have been using a shaky old table top easel. As if that wasn't bad enough it wasn't too stable and prone to tip over if you weren't careful. I eventually clamped it to the old shop table I was using. In place of a Mahl stick I would stand a can of spray paint in front of the canvas and rest my arm on that. I figured what was the point of getting a Mahl stick of the easel couldn't support it. I looked at easels online and didn't like what I saw for the money. I decided to build my own. It had to be collapsible, mobile, fit through a standard 28 inch interior doorway, fully adjustable and provide support the full way across the top canvass holder. Most easels just give you a short cross bar and it provides little support on the outer upper corners. I also wanted some kind of Mahl capability and it had to be built to last and solid as a rock. This is what I came up with. 2-5/16" carriage bolts clamp the lower support. For the top, I countersunk a tee nut also 5/16" and made a plug out of teak (also gotten for free) to prevent marring the face of the center support. This applies pressure to a double French cleat similar to what is used to hang wall cabinets. The supports that hold the assembly upright are 1/4" carriage bolts. It will hold a canvass about 65 inches tall. I figure If I have to, I could always make swing out outriggers for more stability if the need arises. My concern was that I wanted it to hold smaller canvases securely.

The best part is this was all made with "rescued" and recycled mahogany and sapelle wood that was all free. If you look close at the feet, you can see it was a mahogany stair tread rejected by the millwork company. The majority of the rest of it was recycled mahogany flooring I got from a friend renovating his house. I even had the wheels from a showroom renovation where I worked a couple of years ago. Total cost was about $35.00 for hardware and glue.

This wood is getting harder and harder to come by and more expensive. It takes such a long time to grow one of these trees it would be a crime to let it go to waste. Just a little wood factoid, it takes about 300 years to grow an ebony tree 1 foot in diameter. Only God can make a tree but it takes the ignorance of man to chop it up and put it in a dumpster.