Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Yesterday Pam and I returned from a relaxing week in Paradise – Paradise, Michigan, that is. Nestled up in Michigan’s upper peninsula, we spent several days in a small cabin on the shore of Lake Superior. No internet, little television (only 5 channels) and lots of fresh air, open space, and sandy beach made for a great trip. As usual, Chris and Robin at Saunders’ Sunrise Cabins were excellent hosts.

I didn’t intend for this to be a photographic trip, instead focusing on hiking, reading, and just plain relaxing. Nonetheless, I wound up experimenting with making abstractions of some of the local scenery. Back at Grandfather Mountain last June, Tony Sweet showed a few photos were he deliberately introduced motion blur – extreme motion blur – to create an impressionistic effect. After taking dozens of ‘straight’ photos of the woods and beach, I started experimenting with long exposures, and moving the camera around.

The first experiment was with a group of trees in the forest near the Upper Tahquamenon Falls. After taking a few straight shots, I lowered the camera’s ISO, stopped down, and gently swept the camera up and down during the 1/4th of a second exposure.

I liked the effect, but wasn’t sure about the completely soft and blurred result. It’s nice, but I wanted some details in the shots. As a result I worked with a few double exposure in the camera – first taking a crisp, sharp image, and then combining that with a soft, motion blurred shot.

We had a day of steady rain after the first few days of hiking in the sunshine, and that gave me a chance to work with the images in Photoshop on the laptop. (Though there was no internet – I still had a computer!)

I wound up manipulating the images, almost entirely through Adobe Camera RAW. If you heavily push the Clarity, Vibrance, Saturation, and sharpening / noise settings, you can produce a really organic, granular quality to the image. In addition, I quickly realized that there was no point in combining multiple exposures in the camera – just take the shots and overlay them in Photoshop, with much more control and no worries about exposure adjustments for multiple shots. Over the next few days I took and worked on some more images – while also reading Harry Potter and playing an extended round of Civilization III on the computer.

My favorite shot from the trip was taken on our last night there. It was late, dark, and the warm sunny afternoon had given way to cool clouds and a light rain. I put the Sigma 14mm f3.5 lens on the camera, and went out to take some beach shots.  

One change since our last visit to Paradise was the installation of dozens of electricity generating windmills on the Canadian side of Whitefish Bay. After dark the windmills light up with warning lights – flashing red lights that randomly switch on and off between the windmills.

Down on the beach, I set the camera to under expose by two stops (it was dark and I wanted it to look dark in the photos) and cranked the ISO up to 800. That still resulted in an 8 second exposure at f11. Instead of trying to introduce intentional motion blur, I just hand held the camera, trying to time the shots to coincide with the illumination of the greatest number of windmills.

I like the effect – like I said, a storm was coming in you could see the rain falling in the few light spots in the sky. A little work in Photoshop has resulted in an interesting image. Unfortunately, at the small web resolutions, the fine pastel like grain and texture of the image is lost, but otherwise this image conveys a bit of the feel of the picture.

So yesterday we drove back home, and reconnected with our day to day lives. The cats were really glad to see us, and won’t leave us alone. Cali’s winter coat in coming in, and that means she’s changing colors from black to black with gray highlights. Fall is coming, winter soon – but I’m glad that we were able to squeeze in a retreat to the north in the final days of summer.

Late summer, almost fall. I’m standing in scrubby oak saplings, all 6 to 9 feet tall. After a couple of miles, the trail I was following looped back, and suddenly I found myself walking another, familiar trail. I didn’t know that the two paths merged, but I did know that the second trail would just lead me back to the dusty dirt road, and another mile stroll back to the car. I decided instead to just thread my way through the scrubby oak saplings.

This place had been clear cut some time ago. When they clear cut they leave the stumps and all the smaller tree branches behind, so you walk over a crunchy carpet of desiccated, decaying branches. The saplings seem to cluster together to form small thickets with small gaps between them. With a little attention, you can wheedle your way through the groves of young trees with little interference – moving from one small clearing to another.

Some mid sized critter – probably a woodchuck – scurried away noisily. I jagged a bit to the left, and came to a small clearing. There I saw a twelve spotted skimmer, perched on a small twig just a foot or so above the ground.

The season is marching on, and as it does various dragonflies fall to the wayside and others emerge. The twelve spotted skimmers are common in mid summer, but have been growing more rare these last several weeks. I realized that this might be the last sighting of this season.

Thud! The twelve spotted skimmers slammed into my chest, flying straight at me. She landed deftly back on her perch. I took that as an invitation to take her photo. She turned out to be a most cooperative subject – and as I said – may turn out to be the last twelve spotted skimmer I see before next spring.

From there I went on to some areas that I knew would be productive with late season dragonflies. Numbers are down from a few weeks ago, but the white faced and ruby meadowhawks are still out, and the females were more common than they were a few weeks ago.

My trips to the Allegan Forest will be winding down in the next few weeks. The foliage has already begun to change. Dragonflies and other insects disappear rapidly in late September and early October – but then it’s time to change over to shooting fall scenics anyhow…

More photos:

I’m a big fan of infrared photography, and increasingly that means shooting digital IR. My personal setup has been based around a Pentax *ist-D 6 megapixel DSLR and a Hoya RM 90 filter. This has produced some pretty nice results, but it has some drawbacks. The RM90 blocks all visible light, and even infrared light up to 900 nanometers. As a result, exposure times on the *ist-D are fairly long. I also find a fair amount of “sensor flare” – light reflections within the digital sensor itself – when using the RM90.

Since just about everyone else who shoots digital IR uses a Hoya R72 filter, today I decided to pick one up and try it out. The R72 blocks visible light, but allows light transmission from about 700nm on. So I made a quick stop to the local camera store, which actually had them in stock, and then headed out to the Allegan Forest to run some tests.

Mother Nature did not entirely cooperate. Although the forecast was for clear skies and sunshine, by mid morning the sun was shining through high overcast clouds, and the only blue sky to be seen was in the southern half of the sky, which meant shooting into the sun to some degree.

Although I took several shots, I picked the one I liked the best and tried to make the best images I could from both the RM90 version and the R72 version. The photo of the Walnut Tree is the one I picked to work on. At the start of this post is the best shot I could make using the RM90 exposure. At the end is the best shot I could make using the R72 exposure. Granted – this test is a bit skewed. I’ve been shooting with the RM90 for a few years now, and have a lot more experience with it than with the R72 (used for the first time today.)

I’ve also enclosed the two RAW files, straight off the camera with no adjustment. These pretty clearly show the difference in color, white balance, and contrast between the two filters. If you look closely at the shot taken with the RM90, you can see some sensor flare in the form of a brighter cyan band running horizontal about 20% above the bottom of the frame. (Minor flare like this can be handled by using the sponge tool in Photoshop to de-saturate the flared area and blend it back into the rest of the image.)

Nonetheless, I shot several dozen images with the two filters, attempting side by side comparisons. Here’s a rundown of what I found out:

1. Speed – the R72 was consistently about 3 stops faster than the RM90. Throughout the morning I was shooting at f11. With the RM90 in place exposures were 2 to 3 seconds at ISO 1600. With the R72 exposures were 1/4th to 1/3rd of a second at the same ISO. In either case – a tripod was a necessity.

2. White Balance – When shooting RAW files, white balance can always be adjusted later. But it’s great to get it close to the mark during the actual shooting process. For a long time I just shot with the RM90 using either daylight or auto white balance settings. This resulted in a low contrast magenta image that could easily be adjusted in Adobe Camera RAW or in Photoshop itself.

These days, with the RM90 I just take a custom white balance reading, with the filter on the camera, off a white card. This results in blue skies that are deep burgundy to black, white clouds, and somewhat cyan colored foliage.

The R72 proved to be more of a challenge on this front. When the white balance was set to auto or to daylight, the camera produced a blood red image, with almost no discernable detail in it. (The detail could of course be teased out in the RAW conversion process, but with these white balance settings it was virtually impossible to access the composition on the preview screen.) I had heard that setting the white balance off foliage was one approach that worked with the R72, so I tried that out and set a custom white balance off green foliage with the filter in place. That resulted in a much better image – although it was still tinted orange

3. Sensor flare – sensor flare seems to be tied to the length of the exposure, and with the much shorted exposures from the R72, it was greatly reduced when using this filter.
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At the end of the day, I can only say that the two filters simply represent two different sets of tradeoffs. The long exposures resulting from the RM90 can result in too much motion blur. The shorter exposures of the R72 help to address that – but I can’t see hand holding the *ist-D with either filter in place. Color balance is probably just a matter of taste - I can see liking the RM90 in some situations, and the R72 in others. It looks like the R72 will result in a lot fewer shots lost to sensor flare.

At any rate – I’m pretty sure that an IR converted camera is in my future, probably the near future to boot.

The water in the swamp is almost a foot deep. It’s clear, the submerged grass stalks take on a deep green, their color enhanced by the clear water. It’s only a matter of time before the plants die, rot, and the water takes on the murky tea color that swamp water should have.

I’m standing near the edge of the marsh I’ve been watching for these last several months. A storm system has been pounding the Midwest, but here in Michigan we are just at the northern edge of the system, so we are only getting hit with glancing blows. Nonetheless, that means wave after wave of heavy thunderstorms, pounding rains, and hours of steady drizzle.  

The drought has been defeated, at least locally. Seemingly overnight, the local papers have switched from hysteria over the drought to hysteria over excessive rains and possible floods.

Walking through the abandoned farmstead, and touring other areas within the Allegan Forest, I’m amazed at the transformation that has taken place in a few short weeks. The sandy fields are green again, and suddenly I’m encountering small frogs and toads, a real rarity in the open fields. The bee balm, which a month ago seemed to be withering before it even bloomed, is now back in force – spice bush and red spotted purple butterflies visit it frequently.

The dragonflies are undergoing their seasonal change over. The ruby and whiteface meadowhawks are now common everywhere. Saddlebags can be found more frequently, and blue darners – who seem to be among the first to appear in spring and the last to leave in autumn – lumber through the air. But the Halloween pennants, club tails, widow skimmers, and ever the ubiquitous twelve spotted skimmers are more and more rare, soon to be gone altogether.

Well, the marsh has endured for another year. It would be impossible for me to walk out to the heart of the marsh now, like I did last week, because the mud and water is just too thick and deep. The dried cracked mud is a thing of the past – and maybe, if we’re lucky, next spring will bring a wave of spring peepers and other frogs.

More photos:

A Treefrog encountered in a field in the Allegan Forest:

The Skink and I made eye contact simultaneously. We contemplated each other for a split second, and it spooked and ran down behind the rock on which it had been sunning itself. But it was a soft spook – a second later a curious head popped back up from behind the rock, and I took this as a cue to step back.

I was standing on the gravel trail that borders Swan Creek, in the Allegan Forest, near the small dam where the creek dumps into the Kalamazoo River. The trail is just a levee - 30 feet of dry earth separating the creek on one side from a marsh on the other. You’d think it would be a great hunting ground for dragonflies, and for a few short weeks in the spring it is. But it doesn’t offer enough food for the winged predators, and so as the season advances they move on to the nearby fields and hills.

Nonetheless, this trail is a regular stop in my visits to the Allegan Forest. It’s a pain to work it – it’s a popular party spot and broken glass is mingled in with the rough gravel dumped onto the levee – combined with an abundance of poison ivy – makes it a tough place to get down to eye level with low perching insects. But still I return – did I mention that the creek is breathtakingly beautiful here, and it’s the only spot I’ve ever seen otters in the wild?

Five minutes. When you spook a target, wait 5 minutes out of sight and then return. I stood on the trail leaning against the monopod, waiting for the clock to tick out.

When the time was up I returned to search for the skink. There it was, close to the spot where I first saw it, and it was fighting a mighty battle with a cricket almost a quarter of its size. The lizard had pulled most of the cricket’s legs off, but was till having a hard time keeping it under control. It was intent on a huge meal, so I slipped in and started photographing.

The lizard was young - the bright bands and blue tail will fade as it gets older. Or so I read in books. Truth be told, I’ve never seen a skink that didn’t have a blue tail. But while folks in southern climates may be used to seeing lizards - the skink is one of the few wild lizards found in Michigan.

At first, I was cautious. The stakes were higher – not only did I not want to lose the lizard, but I also did not want to cost it a meal. So I set up about a yard away and shot through the vegetation that was growing between the subject and the camera.

Slowly, I moved closer and lower, Any competent wildlife shot is taken at eye level with the subject. I worked the front of the lens through the vegetation, and even folded back a few of the leaves that were the most in the way. It was all stealth and slow motion – 5, 10, 15 minutes passed – and every so often I got a little closer, with a little better angle on the subject.

The lizard slipped behind a plant leaf, and delivered the coup de grace to the cricket. I knew that I had not gotten the shot, and disappointment teased at the corners of my mind – until the Skink returned. It moved slowly. Maybe it was sated by this enormous meal. Maybe it was having trouble breathing with a huge cricket pressing against its lungs. In any case, it gave me the chance to get the portrait I wanted.

I left the blue tailed skink, laying on a rock, basking in the sun. For all I know a bird could of have slipped out of the sky and gobbled it up the moment I was over the next hill. But for me, successfully photographing a subject, and leaving it unawares of the whole event, is the epitome of wildlife photography.

I’ve wanted to get an acceptable photo of a skink ever since I first saw them in the Allegan Forest three years ago. It’s not like there’s a shortage of photos of these lizards – they are much more abundant in other parts of the country (cold Michigan is at the northern edge of their range) and they are kept in captivity and can be placed in any number of poses and faux settings for photographs. But observing skinks in the wild I realized that this was one goal that would never be achieved by active pursuit – but rather could only be obtained by waiting for, or attaining, the right time and place.

With all photography – it’s not about bagging a trophy, getting control of some “thing”, or adding something to your collection. But rather – it is about the process. About walking the same ground over and over again, about being in the moment and seeing what it holds. I have trod this ground for only a few years – I hope to tread it many more, to get some slight understanding of that place.

Here is the full sequence of photos of the Skink -

Monday was the first day of the rest of my life. Yes – really. Or at least another new chapter. Unlike most Mondays for the past year, when I’ve roared down the highway and headed into a day job, this Monday brought not obligations, save the prime directive to seek out and explore new images. Yes – the day job has wound down – I always has a little time built into the schedule for photography – but now the days are wide open, to be used as best as I can…

So I spent the day searching out new areas for different photo projects, and then late in the afternoon wound up at the old farmstead in the Allegan Forest . The weather has been wet for a while now, and I was delighted to see a resurgence of dragonflies in the fields. They were almost exclusively Ruby Meadowhawks, but a few White Faced Meadowhawks made the scene, and green darners lumbered in the air above.

Overall, it was a very productive day – 18 dragonfly photos made the cut (and the standard keeps getting higher) and one shot of a huge robberfly was also interesting. That was on top of the 4 rolls of 120 film shot in the 6x7. (Another goal for this sojurn is to re-learn how to see in black and white, and get back into film development.)

Most of the ruby meadowhawks were shot by the seasonal marsh I’ve mentioned before. On this day I ventured back into the marsh, walking on a mat of dried vegetation that held me up over the muck below. Whenever I dropped to my knees to get a shot of one of the ruby meadowhawks, I came up with knees soaking wet with clear water.

I wanted to see the heart of the marsh. I visited it last summer, when things were actually much drier. It’s a small, deep, mucky reserve – the only place where cattails and Lilly pads grow, though last summer those were all dried up and dormant by the end of July.

Back in the heart of the marsh there was a small pool of water. It was really just muck, but in places an inch or two of water floated up above the muck. The ground was pitted with deer hoof prints. There are many small sources of water (in addition to the big sources of water) in the Allegan Forest. I suppose this small area within the marsh is a resource for deer who don’t want to trek to one of the larger water sources.

I was tempted to trek through the shoulder high grasses in the marsh – but instead decided to retrace my steps. Along the way I saw mating red faced meadowhawks (photographed, not presented.) I also saw a couple of female blue elfins, but no males.qq The male ruby meadowhawks must be feeling pretty frustrated. Back up by the parking area I spotted one or two female ruby meadowhawks, but only a couple compared to dozens and dozens of males. Well, maybe the ladies were retiring and had withdrawn to some secluded place…

More Photos: 

The seasonal road narrowed into a small two track, and that ultimately petered out. I had decided to explore new areas of the Allegan Forest, and this looked like as good a place as any to step out of the car and take a look around.

When the loggers cut the trees down, they pull the stumps out by the roots. The DNR stacks these rooty stumps up to make barriers – mostly for cars but you can’t walk or climb over them either. So when I got out of the car I walked around to the end of the barrier, and turning around I saw two large dog food bags.

At first I thought that someone had just dumped some garbage here – but then I noted that one of the bags was carefully taped shut with duct tape. The other bag looked like it had never been opened, but the seam at the end of the bag had come apart, and it looked like animals had ripped it up, getting at the food.

I gave the taped shut bag a squeeze, and felt the intact kibble still in it. I stood there, momentarily perplexed, and then an idea stole upon me. “Look for the bones….”

Turning – I saw it. The dug out grave. Dog bones laying in the sand, torn loose from the plastic in which they were carefully wrapped. The grave – maybe a foot or so deep – wasn’t enough to keep out the coyotes, foxes, or raccoons…

I can only guess at the grief of the dog owner. He had a good stock of food on hand, so no doubt expected the dog to live a good while longer. And in leaving the bags of food behind, he was committing an ancient and uniquely human act. For as long as we have walked the earth, humans have left burial offerings – part sacrifice to the unknown, part gift to the departed, to aid them in their journey forward. Whether its building a pyramid full of luxuries, or just leaving a couple of bags of dog food with a deceased pet – it’s a tradition as old as our species.