My photographic style centers on the use of natural light to visualize emotion and evoke memory. The evolution of my style began early in the year 2002, with an imperative to capture personal and fleeting memories.
My son and I traveled to New York City, to view the first Saint Patrick's Day parade after September 11, 2001. My work from that parade was so successful and satisfying (see "New York Fire Department, Saint Patrick's Day 2002") I just never stopped.
Evening breezes brought to a halt my series of hibiscus bloom photographs, that bloom faded and shriveled, to be replaced by another. I captured the images of this post on a very quiet summer evening. This bloom was facing up closer to vertical that the previous.
A key identification for all 300 species of hibiscus is the long stamen tube. I have yet to see a local insect interacting with the stamen, always they are in the flower throat. In the tropics, pollination is thought to proceed from large butterflies and birds.
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ISO 100, 1/10 sec at f / 14
ISO 100, 1/6 sec at f / 14
Here are three macro photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. I learned by experience to tamp down the diaphragm to the smallest setting, f / 32 for this lens. The different aspects were achieved by moving the lens objective closer to the bloom. This is a “fixed” lens, it has one focal length.
ISO 100, 1.0 sec at f / 32
ISO 100, 1.3 sec at f / 32
ISO 100, 1.3 sec at f / 32
References
Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
In the nature of fame, today Watkins Glen is the best known of the Finger Lakes State Parks. The International Speedway of that name enhanced and amplified name recognition during the post war years. Founded in 1948, the course used public roads of the town until the inevitable happened, an accident and the death of a seven year old child in a group of sidewalk spectators when a racer lost control.
The glen predates the race by 12,000+ years formed at that time from glaciation using materials from distant eons . Watkins Glen was known as a tourist attraction from the 19th century for the resort hotel on the south gorge rim, acquired and developed by New York State in the first years of the 20th century.
From a gate off “Lovers Lane” a sturdy flight of concrete steps with custom made handrails lead to an observation platform over the gorge. This feature will be known to many future generations……
…….the fine grained concrete is worthy of a Roman wall, the heavy iron handrails were built to specification as flowing curves unlike what is done today: built as modules and accommodated on site.
In the 20th century the fame of Watkins Glen attracted the road race, the popularity of racing enhanced park attendance. Today, the gorge trail of crowded summer weekends. On Tuesday, August 1, 2017 Pam packed a picnic lunch and we made a late start for a weekday visit. The upper entrance is enhanced by mature trees, oak, elm, hemlocks. We had our picnic under these on a moldy picnic table enhanced with a green striped table cloth and fresh coffee.
Pam is my personal photographer. Here is an example of her work.
To give me my due, I did the driving and carried the 30+ pound pack into the gorge.
Pam captured me in position downstream from Rainbow Falls with a Manfrotto tripod with hydrostatic ball head on which is mounted a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and Canon EF 24mm f1.4 II USM lens, Tiffen nd 0.9 filter.
It was coming up to 4 pm eastern daylight savings time, the sun still high overhead. I needed to carefully choose a position for a frame in the wide angle lens without hot spots. Here are two results.
The sun was just of the gorge rim, to the right. Rainbow Falls forms from the tributary to Glen Creek cascading over the gorge walls.
Visitors walk under the falls where falling water eroded the soft, underlying stone to form an overhang.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
As Pam and I past the scenes of bucolic reverie this sign drew us back to the past. The reference to de Courcy is as a family of invading Normans. John de Courcy, without the King’s permission, launched an 1176 AD invasion of northeastern Ireland, what is now County Down, as an ultimately failed land grab. The history is murky, though apparently John de Courcy’s son Miles acquired the land referred to in the placard through the English King Henry II, awarded to Miles’ thieving, murderous Norman father-in-law Milo de Cogan in the 13th Century. Much later, the old (James) and new (Charles) Forts were constructed to defend Kinsale harbor.
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Here is a Google Maps screen capture showing the relationship of our position (the unnamed red drop-pin) on the right, Charles and James Forts and the de Courcy family parklands, the large blank area below the pin named “Dock beach.”
Here are the views looking toward the Celtic Sea, the Old Head of Kinsale and the cliffs at our feet.
Looking toward the Old Head of Kinsale in the far distance
Rocky Cliffs at our feet
Cliff and Sea Pink
More Sea Pink decorating the rocks.
Here is a Google Earth view of our walk, the red line. The view is looking east from above the former “de Courcy family parkland.”
A half mile footpath, marked in red, leads from Charles fort along the shoreline cliffs, surmounted by working farmland.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Nyctinasty (flower response to light: opening with or closing without light) in hibiscus plants is a mechanism to protect against adverse conditions such as cool temperatures that can be damaging. Through a lack of light stimulus and circadian rhythms the plant is able to trigger the molecular movement of ions to allow for the closing of the flower.
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ISO 100, 1.3 sec at f / 29
Here are three macro photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. I start with the shutter diaphragm open at 4.0 (“F-stop”), a little narrower at 4.5 and a bit more at 9.0. For this lens the maximum opening is at 2.8, the narrowest is 32. As the opening narrows (F-stop increases) the exposure time needed to capture enough light lengthens and the range of the image in focus increases.
ISO 100, 1/30 sec at f / 4.0
ISO 100, 1/25 sec at f / 4.5
ISO 100, 1/6 sec at f / 9.0
References
Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
This long exposure blurs the two distant human figures looking downstream toward junction of Orderville Canyon, around corner. Narrows of Zion National Park, Utah
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
As Pam and I continued down the half mile “Sallyport” footpath, marked in red on the Google Earth view provided at the end of this post, we enjoyed the view across the Celtic Sea toward the distant Old Head of Kinsale and this sailboat headed to port.
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Landward, we enjoyed watching the progress of a farmer rolling hay bales while cows munched fresh green grass.
A half mile footpath, marked in red, leads from Charles fort along the shoreline cliffs, surmounted by working farmland.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
This is a perennial, commonly known simply as “hibiscus”, or less widely known as rose mallow. Other names include hardy hibiscus, rose of sharon, and tropical hibiscus.
The hibiscus flower is traditionally worn by Tahitian and Hawaiian girls. If the flower is worn behind the left ear, the woman is married or has a boyfriend. If the flower is worn on the right, she is single or openly available for a relationship.
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ISO 800, 1//8 sec at f / 32
Here are the three photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. Two with “sweat bees” and one without.
ISO 800, 1//8 sec at f / 32
ISO 800, 1//8 sec at f / 32
ISO 800, 1//8 sec at f / 32
References
Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Yellow hibiscus, the state flower of Hawaii was recorded in ancient Greece. In the photograph is captured several unopened buds, behind the flower, and a bee in the flower throat, attracted by nectar there. It is a small bee, of the Halictidae family, that lives alone in a ground nest and also called a “sweat bee,” from being attracted to perspiration.
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The pronounced cross-bedding (diagonal layering) of this Navajo Sandstone wall exposed by Virgin river erosion is the effect of wind drifting sands of the largest known sand desert formed in the Jurassic era lasting for 56 million years (185 million years ago). This photograph contrasts the ever new Virgin River with this ancient rock, deepening shadows suggest the depth of time.
Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 