Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Sometimes I wonder if the dragons miss me as much as I as I miss them. Sitting down here in my very urban ‘yard’ (it’s just a small patio) near downtown Kalamazoo, a dragonfly has suddenly landed on a thistle seed head next to me. It’s a small one – nondescript – just darting out now and then to pluck a mosquito from the air. But it’s looking at me with the same look my cat might have in her eyes…

Well, after all these years of seeking them out, perhaps it is only fitting that they should seek me out for a change…

It’s been dry here in West Michigan – a drought that seems to have caught many unawares. The extremely wet spring, with its heavy rains, has given way to a prolonged dry period. On Friday I visited the marsh off 48th street in the Allegan Forest. A few weeks ago it was at last full and wet – the first time in several years. Now the water has gone, just leaving cracked mud and the semi-decayed vegetation that the marsh overran but did not have time to consume.

I saw a tiny white frog there - it was so small I thought it was a moth. I got it in the camera finder but it hopped away before I pressed the shutter button. The look in it’s eye - “Where is that water!”

My day in the Allegan Forest, Friday last, was initially devoted to exploring new areas. I’ve only been out in a fraction of the 80 square miles that make up the forest. So on this day I pushed off into some new areas.

One of my first stops what to explore the “Fennville Farm Unit.” As the name implies, it is a working farm, but it is in one of the lowest and wettest areas of the ‘forest’. Streams – more like man-made channels or ditches – carry water through the farm area. There are several pull offs and parking lots, with simple plank bridges that let you get over the ditches and into the grasslands that surround the fields. There was an abundance of birds and many I had never seen before – definitely worth a return trip for birding.

Ultimately I made my way back to more familiar grounds, and did actual photography along 48th street. I did manage to visit several fields that I had only scouted before, and shot both insect photos and a few digital infrared shots. The digital IR’s only disappointed – sensor flare seemed to creep into every exposure – but it was a good day for photographing insects.

Most memorable of the day were the – I believe – calico pennant dragonflies. These creatures have a remarkable pastel color to the their wings. They were out in abundance in the old farmland along 48th street.

Also out in abundance – and to my surprise – were the first Red Meadowhawks and White Faced Meadowhawks. I’ve been saying that when the red dragon appears the summer is about to end, but here it was, the 6th of july – and the summer is just gearing up with the first major heat wave of the season.

A check of the field guide shows that the red meadowhawks can appear as early as mid July – so maybe they are pushing it a bit. But I only found them around the drying swamp, and so I assume that the environmental pressure lead them emerge earlier than usual. But the swamp itself – which is now dry enough to walk out into – was the only place where I saw these red dragons – both Red meadowhawks and White Faced Meadowhawks – so I assume they are responding to it quickly drying up. They were mating like there was no tomorrow, so let’s hope they sow the seeds (literally) for either a second wave yet this summer, or for next year’s red dragons.

Out in the fields, the American Copper Butterfly has come to be my most steadfast companion. Where ever I go, there they are.

It’s ironic because my first attempts at photographing these creatures were frustrating and unsuccessful. They are small – about the size of a dime – and agile. Maybe I’ve become known to the collective sphere of their insect intelligence, at least locally. Or maybe I’ve just gotten better and stalking and shooting these tiny marvels. But either way – they are like a an old familiar friend out among the wild strawberries and other weedy plants.

Thinking about it – I’ve never, ever, seen an American Copper here in my urban backyard. Almost all the other species of butterflies show up sooner or later – eastern tailed blues, tiger swallowtails, spicebush, fritillary, monarchs and viceroys – but never has a copper come this way.

Included in the photos with this update are a few from two weeks ago.

The colorful grasshopper below is only of the few Orthoptera included in these photos. I generally find grasshoppers to be boring subjects. And their personalities leave a lot to be desired as well – nowhere near as engaging and debonair as your typical dragonfly.

The first shots in this update are from the first weekend in July. Aside from the grasshopper, most notable is the Dragon Hunter, who snatched a Twelve Spotted Skimmer out of the air and gobbled her up. I took a full series of photos documenting this – but to me they are only a gruesome curiosity, and do not reflect what I find most compelling about these insects.

More Photos: 

Halloween Pennants or Calico Pennants:

 

Unidentified Red Meadowhawk :

 

 Blue Dasher:

 

Unidentified Red Meadowhawk :

 

Whitefaced Meadowhawk:

Inspired by Water is an invitational exhibit featuring work by local, west Michigan artists. This multimedia exhibition was curated by Maryellen Hains, and accompanies a larger exhibit devoted to the images of the Great Lakes.

For Inspired by Water, Maryellen sought out abstractions dealing with the theme of WATER: color, movement, symbol, metaphor. As with the Inspired by Flowers exhibit last year, the artists were split into two groups and then paired together. The person in the first group completed a piece by February, which was then delivered to their partner in the second group. The person in the second group then created a piece that responded to the first.

I participated as a member of the first group, and am looking forward to exhibiting one of the most abstract pieces I’ve ever made.

Inspired by Water will run from July 14 through September 3, 2007, and the Carnegie Center for the Arts, 107 North Main Street, Three Rivers, MI 49093.

I have to admit it – I’m starting to get tired of shooting dragonflies. It seemed like this day would never come, but suddenly I’m feeling sated and looking for new stuff to do.

So… On to some new experiments with digital infrared…

Color digital IR has always impressed me, ever since I first encountered it in posts Marty Getz made on PhotoBlink, back in the day when I participated there. (By the way – Marty’s “Aliens Above” series is a must visit page for Digital IR fans…)

A few days ago David Brooks on the PDML posted this link to a discussion about digital IR. So far, with my digital IR work, I’ve just de-saturated the image and then worked with it as a mono shot. That usually means toning the image in Photoshop using the duotone or tritone tools. But the discussions about workflow got me thinking about working with color, so tried out a few of the ideas presented.

First, I tried taking a custom white balance off some green vegetation. This, of course, would turn green tones white since I’m calibrating the camera to do just that. I set the custom white balance without the IR filter (Hoya RM90) and proceeded to shoot, using the Pentax *ist-D (the K10D is just too good at filtering out IR.)

This was a good start, and eliminated the lavender monochrome that all digital IR shots come out in when white balance is set to daylight or auto. But I didn’t see the logic behind setting the white balance to green. Instead, I just set the white balance using a white (well – my light grey shirt) light source _with_ the IR filter in place.

Voila – suddenly I was seeing the subtle shades of color in the digital images!

I wondered why I hadn’t thought about adjusting the white balance before this – but the answer is obvious. Since I was shooting RAW, I assumed white balance was irrelevant. Afterall, I could select what ever white balance I wanted to, right?

And that is exactly the case. The only thing is, all the standard white balances expressed the IR shots as different shade of monotone. I never delved into really customizing the WB to get some more interesting effects. And all it really takes is just a tap of the eyedropper in Adobe Camera Raw on the white highlights of a cloud or something like that.

Well – now I know. And in the future I can go back an possibly re-work some of my older IR shots – though I may come to find that the simplicity of B&W is what serves these images best.

But – at least there’s another trick in the bag of tricks!

As always - full sized images can be found in the Image Stream, or by clicking on the images here.

Summer is officially here. The longest day of the year has come and gone, the linden tree next door has bloomed and faded, and the fields are the lush green of early summer.

Well, I’ve managed to do a little shooting these last couple of weeks. A week ago Friday I stole away for a few hours to the McLinden Trails, which this year more than any other I’ve seen is the best local spot for dragonflies. Calico pennants, Halloween pennants, clubtails, and darners were dancing in the air above the waving fields of grass. It was quite a sight to see dozens of dragonflies glistening in the morning sun as they shot around in the sky, darting here and there looking for prey.

The two hours I spent on the trails proved to be remarkably productive. With dozens of shots taken, and a good percentage of keepers among them, I wasn’t too concerned to have to call off shooting early. Unfortunately – my old Subaru (which just hit 135,000 miles) needed a minor repair. So I had no choice but to drop the car off and spend the afternoon at home.

At I did have work to do. This upcoming Thursday – June 28 – I’ll be conducting a nature photography workshop at the Pierce Creek Institute for Environmental Education. The subject is nature photography for naturalists, and I’ve been trying to cram the essentials of insect macros, wild flowers, and bird photography into a one day session.

Like I said about presenting at Grand Father Mountain – I really put a lot into preparing for these sessions. Grand Father Mountain was a 90 minute session, but this week’s class is just over 4 hours. I’m very excited about this upcoming workshop, though, and in many ways the PowerPoint presentation I put together for it is the outline of a book I’ll have to write some day.

On Saturday, a week ago now, I visited the Allegan Forest. This was an unproductive trip. It was hot – temps in the mid 90’s – and the coreopsis was fading fast. There seemed to be few dragonflies or other insects out, and while I played cat and mouse with a few wild turkeys who had holed up in a thicket surrounded by open field, nothing good came of the trip.

The sound of gunfire – sometimes distant, sometimes close – was incessant. As far as I know, nothing is in season now, so this was just folks shooting off guns for something to do. I went to one of the fields that sometimes produce Karner Blues, only to find it littered with dozens and dozens of shotgun and rifle shell casings. Some goofball actually spilled a bunch of lead, 22 caliber hollow point bullets on the ground – and just left them there. The ultimate litter in the land of the ‘free.’

Female Calico Pennant

So, that trip was a bust. Time to get back to the studio and do more work…

In addition, I had to prep five images for a pinhole photography exhibit. So this Friday found me first up in the office / studio prepping and mailing an exhibit entry, and then down in the basement workroom, framing up and packing prints. The cats were happy – I think they get lonely when everyone is away at work – and they certainly were a tremendous help (especially with the matting and framing…)

After that, Saturday brought the final touches to the Nature Photography power point, production of handouts and preparation of props.

So – no new dragonfly shots this week, and belated post on last week’s shots. I’m sure the dragons are buzzing around wondering where the heck that camera guy is – so hopefully next Friday will find us in close communion.

More photos:

 Widow Skimmer:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damselflies:

 

 

After talking about macro photography at Grand Father Mountain last weekend, I’ve been all the more keen on getting out into the field and actively shooting the dragonflies and other insect subjects that are now out in force.

So on Friday and again today (Monday) I headed out to the Allegan forest, looking for dragonflies and other interesting subjects.

Things started out slow on Friday. We’ve been on a weather roller coaster these last several days – when we returned from North Carolina it was dark, dank, and cold. That was on Tuesday – by Thursday temps soared into the mid 90’s, but then plummeted in thunderstorms and clouds that night.  

When I headed out Friday morning the skies were still cloudy and overcast. I had woken up at 3:30 am that morning, and checked the weather channel – which reported a temperature of 75 with high humidity. As I drove northwest to Allegan, I passed through a front and the weather underwent a major change – temps dropping to the low 60’s in the span of a few minutes. The hazy humid over cast skies changed to clear blue, with high clouds and strong winds.

It apparently had rained – really rained – just before I got there. The trees were dripping wet and the sandy soil, which usually passes rain water very quickly, was damp with a few lingering puddles.I hit a few favorite places – the coreopsis field off 46th street was in full bloom, looking as glorious as ever, but devoid of butterflies and dragonflies.

As a result I headed down 126th street towards Swan Creek. I drove by the recently clear cut forest and headed down a two track to an area where dragonflies, orioles, and other great subjects can usually be found. It’s an unusual place – you take the two track back a ways into the woods and come upon a circle up on a small hill. Guys come here and rip around, doing doughnuts in the sandy soil. As a result the circle has a pretty deep trench worn in it, and it looks a like some sort of UFO landing zone.

Nonetheless, the dragonflies and other insects were out in force here. As an interesting side note, the side of the sandy trench collapsed in the rain, revealing a stash of old stubby necked beer bottles (unfortunately empty – though one still had a rusted cap on it.)

So who came out here 25 years ago and buried their beer bottles? Well, you never know.

After visiting the go round I made my way down to Swan Creek, which was positively swarming with dragonflies. I also brought the pinhole camera, and took a d few landscape shots while there.

Today brought more temperate and mild weather. I let early and decided to take a new route into the Allegan Forest. After all – it’s 80 square miles (45,000 acres) and I keep visitng the same old places. So I just picked a random two track and headed into the woods a ways, parked when the road ended, and was rewarded with a gorgeous valley full of coreopsis and other wildflowers. I followed a path through a maze of honeysuckle bushes, and in and out of some wooded areas. All very rich areas for photographing insects – lots of dragonflies, and a few large butterflies.

After a few hours in this area I headed back to some familiar places. First was the old farm stead, probably my favorite place in the whole forest. Here again was an abundance of dragonflies, and I also found a maing pair of bee killers – a somewhat rare find.

The marsh at the far end of this clearing (the overall clearing is probably 100 to 150 acres) is a marsh that had been drying these last few years. Last year I walked all through the marsh – just one small mucky puddle of wetland, only about 10 x 20 feet in size, remained. This year there is at least 5 acres of full blown, see the water, wetland. The bull frogs were poinging and the sky was thick with dragonflies, I managed to get a nice shot of a blue dasher, but most of the dragons stayed out over the water.  

From there I wound up back at the coreopsis field, where I started on Friday. By this time the afternoon breezes were picking up, making it harder to get sharp shows as the subjects bounced around. I spent some time with a very cooperative 12 Spotted Skimmer, trying to get a decent shot of the dragonfly with the yellow coreopsis flowers in the background. Well, the results were so-so.

Overall, these were a couple of good days of shooting. I have other work to do now, and probably won’t be back into the woods till the end of the week. But these few sweet weeks of summer make for great days of photography.

More photos from these two trips:

Twelve Spotted Skimmers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Darners:

 

 

Eastern Pondhawk:

 

Brown Spiketail Dragonfly:

 

Common Whitetail:

 

Tiger Swallowtail:

 

Exuberance is a great thing, but sometimes it leads you to do nutty things.

Until a few days ago I was quite exuberant about seeing periodic cicadas here in Michigan. The emergence of these insects got a lot of press coverage, and it looked like southwest Michigan was in for a rare treat. I had seen the brood XII emergence in Washington DC a few years ago, and was hoping for something similar here.

No such luck. As it turns out, the periodic cicadas apparently aren’t to be found here in Michigan. My trip to the Allegan Forest a couple of weeks ago was exceptionally mis guided, since even the erroneous reports of the cicadas didn’t show them that far north. Well, I based my decisions on what I read in the newspapers – no wonder I missed the mark….

Yesterday, fresh back from North Carolina, I was planning to head out to the Dowagiac Woods, Warren Woods, Russ Forest, and other areas in SW Michigan – Cass and Berrien Counties – in hopes of finding some of these insects. But after reading Mark O’Brien’s account of his search in the same areas in his Six Legged Wonders blog. Well, if one of the state’s leading entomologists can’t find them there, they probably aren’t around to be found.

And yesterday was a cold, clammy, cloudy, and crappy day anyhow. Nonetheless, by mid afternoon I shook off the lethargy the comes from two days of non-stop driving, and wandered over to the McLInden Trails to see if any dragonflies were out.

I was treated to a real abundance of early summer dragonflies! They were out in force and despite the cool temperatures were pretty active. As often found on cloudy and cool days, they tended to perch down low to the ground, which made getting clean shots a bit difficult. But I’m happy with the shot of the Plains Clubtail featured here.

Aside from some interesting dragonflies, another treat of the day was a Mantidfly – which looks like a cross between a Mantis and a Wasp, but is actually a member of the Neuroptera order which includes lacewings and ant lions. Fascinating insect and while not a rare find, certainly a new find for me.

Technically, it is interesting to see how different lighting situations require adjustment. In bright full sun I happy click along with the flash unit set to zero compensation. But in the low light situations like yesterday (ambient light readings at ISO 400, f16 resulted in shutter speeds of 1/20th to 1/45th of a second – 3 to 4 stops less than what you’d expect in full sunlight) I found that I had to dial in a good deal of flash compensation. The clubtail was shot at -2 stops, and most other shots were at -1.5 or -2.0 stops flash compensation. Just shows that you have to be flexible, check exposures, and adapt to the situation as you shoot.

More photos:

Mantidfly: 

 

 

Skippers:

 

First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is…

Back from Grandfather Mountain. Michigan gives us a cold reception, with ‘see your breath’ temperatures and misty drizzly rain.

The Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography weekend was a great event. This was my first visit to the mountain, and I presented on macro photography techniques. I spent a lot of time tweaking, re-tweaking, and revising my presentation, and so spent a lot less time socializing and shooting. In the end the presentation seemed to go over fairly well, so I’m glad I spent that extra effort to get it just right.

The highlight of the weekend was meeting many of the folks from the Pentax Discussions Mailing List, the ultimate online forum for Pentax and K Mount related topics (and most everything else under the sun.) It’s great to put a face with the names of people you’ve ‘talked’ with, in some cases for years.

The Nature Photography weekend itself was an excellent event. Don Nelson and his Team kept things running like clockwork. Grandfather Mountain itself is a majestic location and incredibly rich environment for nature photography.

Tony Sweet made an excellent presentation showcasing his new work and giving a hint at the vision that drives his photography. Tony’s work is as new and fresh as it comes – a real inspiration to get out of the box and try new things. The most memorable quote from the weekend came from his presentation – something like “I went there with the intent of not take one ‘regular’ photo…” Great stuff.

Don McGowan presented on interpretive landscape shots, and treated the audience to many classic images. Gregory Georges brought everyone up to speed on the latest in Photoshop, Lightroom, and other tools, and Dick Ginkowski gave an excellent overview on how photographers can travel smart. Dick presented a slide show of outstanding images taken from just about every corner of the continent – demonstrating that his travel tips are based on his experience on the ground (and in the air.)

It all went way too fast and before I knew it Pam and I were on the road working our way north. We made it to Monroe, OH on Sunday, and then back to Kalamazoo late Monday.

I’m a perfectionist and probably spent too much time hunched over the laptop, working on the presentation. I had left with high hopes of shooting tons of photos on the mountain, but at the end of the day Pam and I only managed to get out on a couple of hikes. I took a lot of alternative gear – the Vivitar panoramic toy camera, the Holga, and the Kinoflex Pinhole – all of whice saw virtually no use. Well, maybe next year…

Pam and I have been on the road these last couple of days, working our way down to the northwest corner of North Carolina, for the Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography workshop. I’ll be presenting on field techniques for macro photography, and am looking forward to meeting in person some of the folks from the Pentax Discussions Mail List.

I was in North Carolina last year, really just by happenstance. Then I stomped around in the DuPont forest, shot a lot of waterfalls, and also explored the Blue Ridge Parkway. The scenery is a far cry from the Midwestern woods I usually shoot, but it’s something to awaken my slack and sleeping senses.

After a few nights in Knoxville we made it to Grandfather Mountain today – a much longer drive than I anticipated. Aside from some a few minor puzzlers presented by the MapQuest directions (“Does 19E North really run due South?”) things went smoothly. After checking into our lodgings – the Smoke Tree Lodge, a most excellent accommodation – we found the mountain without event.

There we had a chance to make some acquaintances and learn about the planned events for the next couple of days. After that it was up to the top of the mountain, and I promptly picked up shooting where I left off last year – digital infrared landscapes of the smokey mountains.

Well, there really was no choice choice - the haze coving the mountains and the filtered but direct June sun, just screamed for the IR treatment.

That of course meant shooting with the *ist-D (as noted in earlier posts – the K10D IR filters really do block most of the IR light.) The great advantage this year was having a true wide angle lens (I used the DA 18-55, since my Hoya RM 90 IR filter is too small for the DA 16-45.) Having a tripod was also real handy – no more resting the camera on a crumpled hat on fence or sign post, like last year.

I only shot 25 exposures – really just a handful of framed up shots (it pays to bracket with those digital IR shots). Then we left the mountain, took a wrong turn, and found ourselves back at the Smoketree some time later.

Fiddling with the images in Photoshop on the laptop has been interesting. Aspirin popping interesting, and ultimately I’m not sure what the heck they look like – this monitor makes me marvel at the heretofore unseen details of some of my older shots, and cringing and some of the newer shots that seem way out of synch.

Well, calibration will be a home project. Don’t know if there will be any other updates from the road, but certainly something once I’m back home.