Adirondack Park, NY

We just submitted photos for a photo contest. All of these photos were taken in the Adirondack park in New York. Some were taken in early July and some were taken this Fall (late Sept/early Oct). It was very hard to narrow down all the photos taken this year in the ADK to just 10. I just loved the reflections this year. We missed the peak of the hummingbirds this summer but the photo of this female Ruby throated amuses me as she lands on the pine needles.

Here are the 10 photos that Tom entered. Many were taken along my favorite roads, Rt 73. The Osprey are a new pair this year. The previous pair had been at that nest spot for perhaps 8 years and they were quite accustomed to people. This pair was very leery and as you can see, she kept a close eye on Tom. I also have TONS of osprey images from this year. Tom would wait and wait for the male to bring in fish for the female, but this "new husband" was not a great provider and would often show off his catch to his mate but not leave it for her/their young like he was supposed to (he is "supposed to" eat the head andd leave her the rest of the fish. First year pairs are often not successful in raising young. This new pair did manage to raise one baby this year, but it was very slow to mature and it did not fledge until late summer.

Fall at Indian Wells

This Fall has been very amenable to getting outside -- the weather has been just perfect and the days inspiring. I had the 70-200mm lens on my Canon but FORGOT my 67mm Moose polarizer. I LOVE my polarizer but it was not a very sunny day and we were photographing in the woods pretty late in the afternoon so I tried to get along without it. I ended up holding the 77mm Moose polarizer in front of the lens because I just did not like the water, the leaves and the overall glare without the polarizer. This just reinforced for me why I love my Moose polarizer so much. The first image is w/o the polarizer and the second one with me holding the polarizer in front of the lens (same tripod location, same camera settings).

These photos were all taken Sunday at Indian Wells. I was photographing the stream and turned around and found this fallen tree with all these great mushrooms growing on it. I have ~45 different compositions and depth of fields. Sometimes the images shot at f22 were not simple enough. This vertical I took at f8, f11 and f22 and I prefer the one at f8 because you are not as distracted by everything going on at the left and your eyes can settle in on the ones on the right.

Tom took these images of the main waterfall while I worked the stream.