Sample of Chemung SPCA animal photos

Here is a sample of some of the cats and dogs that I have photographed recently at the Chemung County SPCA.

Adirondack Hike

Saturday October, 5^th I woke up at 3:00 AM to ride with a friend five hours to the High Peaks region of the Adirondack park in NY. Our plan was to summit two of the 46 high peaks in the region on our hike. We planned to hike up Giant Mountain and then depending on time, as we had to drive back that night and wanted to be off the mountain before dark, hike Rocky Peak Ridge. Giant Mountain is the 12^th highest peak out of the Adirondack 46 and Rocky Peak Ridge is number 20 on the list.

This was a new experience for me.  I had hiked a couple of mountains earlier in the year in the Adirondack region but both of them were well under 4,000 feet high and well under 2,000 feet of elevation gained during the hike. Both Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge are over 4,000 feet high and Giant Mountain has an elevation gain of approximately 3,000 feet during a three-mile hike. So, while I had a little experience on mountains it was nothing like this. I asked my friend to plan a hike that would be challenging and boy did he ever deliver.

We set a good pace on our hike up Giant Mountain reaching the summit in approximately two hours and fifteen minutes using the Zander Scott Trail route near Chapel Pond. Then we decided since we had plenty of time to get down before daylight and we still felt pretty good we would take the 1.2 mile hike down then back up to Rocky Peak Ridge. This was the most challenging part of the hike for me. There were many steep sections going both up and down requiring me to use trees and other handholds to help pull myself up or hold on while I lowered myself down. We rested for about a half an hour on Rocky Peak Ridge before heady back over to Giant Mountain and then back down off the mountain.

On the way back from Rocky Peak Ridge to Giant Mountain, the fatigue really began to set in for me. I was really struggling both physically and mentally to keep going. I needed frequent rests to gather myself. I really had to stop and get myself together physically and mentally. For a relatively short 1.2 miles back it felt like forever due to the challenging terrain. Realistically there was nothing I could do but suck it up and press on because I wasn't getting off the mountain without getting back over to Giant. We completed the round trip hike in approximately seven hours and twelve minutes. That seems like a pretty good pace to me considering the total distance was 8.4 miles.

The only downside to the trip was the weather. The temperature itself wasn't too bad. IT was in the mid to lower sixties for a high, which for me is good when I will be exerting myself quite a bit on a hike. But at the top of the mountain it was cold requiring us to don jackets to stay warm enough to stand at the summit and enjoy it for even a short period of time. The other part of the weather that made the trip a little disappointing was that it was completely cloudy. So from the summits of either mountain we could not see much of anything. Even the trees on the summit with us were partially obscured by the clouds. So, we couldn't enjoy the fall scenery from the summit, but fortunately along the hike up Giant Mountain there are many areas where the trail comes out of the woods into an exposed area where the surrounding area can be viewed from.

I try to take the positive view of the experience of not being able to see the scenery from the summit due to clouds. As we hiked up the mountain, we could see the peaks of the mountains around us and several of them appeared to be in the clouds. So in a way I feel fortunate to not have been able to have a clear view of the surrounding area from the summit. Anyone can get to see nice scenery. But you have to climb a mountain to get to stand in a cloud. It was quite an experience I could feel the moisture and see it. It obscured vision at just several feet.

I had a great time overall and I am looking forward to my next trip to the Adirondack region.

A project that I have had in my mind for a while has been to do a photo book of dogs in the Finger Lakes region. The book would showcase dogs in all aspects of life from shelters, to family pets, to working dogs, and show dogs. I have been slowly building up a portfolio of photos that would fit in this type of project and I think I am ready to start really get down to work on it more seriously and try to make it happen in the relatively near future.

I would really like to photograph some working dogs doing their jobs that they were bread for. If you have a working dog such as a herding dogs that tends a herd or a hunting dog that you take hunting for example and would be willing to allow me to photograph it for this project please comment on this post or otherwise get in touch with me.

This would be best if you live in the #FingerLakes region of #NY or the Northern Tier of #PA.

#Dogs #Photography #DogPhotography #DogBook #Book #PhotographyBook

Flash photography in Ithaca

Last weekend I took a trip with the plan to photograph some birds in the woods up in Ithaca, NY. However, the weather did not really cooperate with my idea of good photography weather. I generally prefer to use natural light whenever possible. On this day the sky was very overcast. There was very little light and particularly little making it into the woods.

I decided to use this low light photography opportunity to practice my basic flash photography skills. They can become a little rusty since I do not use them all that often. This was a good opportunity to work on those skills. I found several subjects in the woods to work some flash magic on. I was not successful in finding birds to photograph but I did find these flowers. Let me know what you think of the results.

Redpolls and Flash Photography

I passively monitor biding issues and sightings locally by receiving email from a list serve set up by our local chapter of the Audubon Society. I read or at skim the emails as they come in to see if there is anything interesting going on in the area. Sometimes information that peaks my interest comes through. Recently there had been several emails sent out of people in the area reporting Redpolls in the area. I found this interesting because I had been fortunate in the past to see Redpolls for a short period of time where we currently live shortly after moving here. I had not seen them since, so I am always interested when hearing of an opportunity to see them again.

 

As I began to see an increasing number of reports on Redpoll sightings coming in I started to get hopeful that they would return to my feeders as well. I began to be more diligent about making sure there was seed in my feeders so that if they did show up they would find food and hopefully stick around instead of moving on.

 

One day I looked out the window at the feeders and quite unexpectedly saw that there was a Redpoll mingling with the other birds that are commonly seen at the feeders. A few days later I happen to look out at the feeders and saw there were now two Redpolls in the mix with the other birds at the feeders. This pair appeared a few more times over a few days.

 

I did not initially go out to photograph the individual that showed up or the pair I saw. I did not want to scare them off. I was hoping that the presence of the ones already here would draw in more individuals. I had read reports of large flocks of Redpolls and I was hoping for a large flock sighting of my own at my feeders.

 

One day I was on the phone with my dad and I noticed movement outside in the treetop where my feeder is. I walked towards the window to investigate, while talking, not really thinking much about it. When I got to the window I exclaimed to my dad that I had a huge flock of Redpolls in the tree. Now the flock probably wasn’t really huge by comparison to other sightings but it was certainly more than I had ever seen at one time and I was excited and I am sure I exaggerated due to my excitement.

 

I began to try counting the number of Redpolls in the flock but it was difficult. The flock was in constant motion. Every time I would get into it, they would move.  I could only confirm a count of 20 but there were clearly more than that present. I enjoy birding but I am by no means an expert. I have never really tried to count a large number of birds all at once.

Despite my challenges with counting the birds this is the opportunity I had been waiting for. I wanted to get out there and take some photos. However, my gear was all packed up as I had not used it recently and this being upstate NY in the middle of Winter with several inches of snow on the ground, it required me to scramble around to dress quickly in boots, coat, gloves, and hat. Once I was geared up I quietly went out the side door as opposed to the door leading directly to the location of the flock because I didn't want to scare them off. As I cautiously moved around the house to where I had seen the flock, they were nowhere to be found. This was clearly a disappointment.

I went back in the house, but this time I kept all the needed gear in easy reach in hopes that the flock would return. As luck would have it my hopefulness and preparedness this time was rewarded. After a few hours, I looked out the window and saw that there were once again Redpolls at the feeders. It was not as big a flock as before but it was still a significant number. I decided against wasting time trying to count them and immediately got dressed and snatched up my camera and went out seeking photos of these elusive birds.

 

In this region of upstate NY in the winter it hasn’t been sunny very often. The sky is often overcast and gloomy. There has not been much nice light for photography. For my photography, I prefer to use natural light whenever possible, as probably most photographers do. While the light was sufficient to get at least decent photographs, I decided to go against my instinct stick with all-natural lighting photography because I thought I could get better photos if I used a flash. My preference is to stick to the KISS philosophy, which was drilled into me at a young age. Keep It Simple Stupid. To me adding one more variable such as flash just complicates matters and increases the likelihood something will not work out quite right.

So there I stood watching the feeders as the Redpolls flitted about snatching up seed. These little buggers were not an easy subject. A few of the Redpolls were content to sit on the plat form feeder and eat for several seconds at a time so I snapped a few photos of that behavior as documentation type photos. However, that was not the photo I was after. I wanted photos of Redpolls perched on branches with the darker background of the woods in the background out of focus. I stood still and visually tracked individuals as they approached the feeder. They would flit from branch to branch getting progressively closer. I watched to see what path the Redpolls often took. I wanted to be able to anticipate where the Redpolls would land and be ready when they landed there. Sometimes I was spot on and got the shot and sometimes I was not ready or simply not fast enough and missed the shot. It was a fun experience to photograph this group of birds that I do not get to see often. I am hoping they will be back to provide me with another opportunity to learn their behavior and improve my ability to photograph them.

Foster Kittens

For me one of the most important words in life is passion. I believe that it is critical to have passion in life. I try to plug into as many things that I am passionate about as possible. My beliefs are based on what I am passionate about. I study psychology because I am passionate about it. I am a photographer because I am passionate about it. I have companion animals because I am passionate about them. As my life has gone on, I have developed new passions.

I love dogs and animals in general. My wife and I currently have four dogs and two cats. We are also providing foster care for six kittens and their mother until the kittens are old enough to be adopted from our local animal shelter. When I say we I mostly mean my wife but it was a joint decision for her to do it since they would be in our house. There was a time when I would have worked hard to persuade my wife not to do this. This time was not too long ago in fact.

I had been against the idea of us providing foster care for cats not because I didn’t think it was a good thing to do, but because my wife has such a strong connection to animals that I feared she would not be able to let them go to be adopted and we already had sufficient commitments to our current companion animals that I did not think we could responsibly handle any more.

Not too long before the six kittens we have now my wife persuaded me to that she should provide foster care for one kitten who had no mother and would require bottle feeding. After discussing the matter and coming to the understanding that no matter what we would not be keeping the kitten we decided she should give it a shot.

People who know me probably know that I have resisted providing foster care and may wonder why I changed my mind. So I thought I would write about it.

The biggest reason why I have reversed my position on us providing foster care is related directly to passion. Over probably the past year, I have become increasingly educated on issues relating to companion animals. I have become increasingly informed about the past and present of our sheltering system in the United States. I have become aware of the No Kill movement in America. As I have become educated about animal sheltering the No Kill movement has become an issue I am passionate about. I firmly believe it can be achieved by any animal shelter that commits to doing it. I do not believe it will be easy but I believe there have been enough success stories to prove that it can be done.

It is this passion for the No Kill movement that convinced me to change. A key component in creating a no kill animal shelter is having concerned citizens volunteer to provide foster care for animals that the shelter cannot provide are for. This created a lot of dissonance in my mind. How can I truly support the No Kill movement and be unwilling to allow foster care for companion animals to happen in my home. So Finally it crystallized in my mind. If my wife is passionate about fostering companion animals then we should do it.