Month: October 2021

Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the windiest place on earth. And I was just blown away by the view from the 6,288 foot summit. It was like looking down on the clouds from an airplane. We watched them start to roll over the nearby ridges as the wind picked up in the afternoon. Luckily, the winds the afternoon we visited were gentle, and nothing like the world record 231 MPH recorded in 1934 by the weather station there. That wind speed still holds the record for winds observed by man. This amazing place is accessible two ways: by the steep, winding auto road from the east side which is how we got there, or by the Mount Washington Cog Railway. It is the world’s first mountain-climbing cog railway built in 1868 and it is still operating today, pulling passengers up the mountain to the summit. There’s no fall color atop the summit but two colorful Cogs are visible as they approached the mountain top. We watched four arrive in quick succession to deposit passengers and to back down the mountain on the single track to return with those ready to go home.

This week is peak season for fall color in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We’ve watched the colors spread and intensify in the few days we’ve been here. The annual fall show is expected to reach its climax this weekend but Thursday morning’s spectacular showing at Willey House on the Saco River was like nothing I’d ever seen. The rich hues, especially the many nuances of reds and oranges with some magenta and yellows competing for attention, is an unforgettable palette of colors that creates a vibrant display across the hillsides.

Claude Monet was a French Impressionist perhaps most widely recognized today for his paintings of water lilies. He said about the paintings he made of his gardens with its distinctive water features, “These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession.” Yesterday morning in the White Mountains of New Hampshire as the peak of fall color is here in all its glory, we visited a spot along the Saco River at Willey House hoping to capture some spectacular reflections in the water, that is until the wind whipped up. That turned out to be our good fortune because what we saw reflected in the water was precisely reminiscent of Monet, the genius of his brushstrokes, and his spectacular paintings of reflections and water. A few years ago, I was fortunate to visit the permanent exhibit of Monet’s final series of water lilies installed in 1927 in Paris at the Musée de l’Orangerie, a year after he died. What I photographed in New Hampshire was alive with color and movement and excitement and took me back to Paris and Monet and Impressionism.

Late afternoon Saturday at The Ranch, I sat down on a railroad tie to absorb the last daylight views I would have of this paradise for a while. Under my leg was a single dandelion. I changed the image area on my Z6II to square, changed the Picture Control to #18 Graphite, made sure the stem of the dandelion was not visible and shaded the puff with my leg. The aperture was f/3.5 on the Nikkor ZMC 105 mm lens so it was perfect to capture the center sharp and leave the fringes all around the edges fuzzy.

Saturday was my last day at The Ranch in Montana. I spent the afternoon absorbing the magic here, swinging on Sharon’s delightful garden swing, basking in the sun near the water feature, swinging on the old fashioned rope swing hanging from a branch on one of the Ponderosa Pines on the property, listening to the birds. It was such a delightful way to spend a lazy afternoon. I was surrounded by pine cones and was determined to get a shot of one of them. Sharon found a cone still attached to a small branch surrounded by a bed of needles, the perfect candidate for my efforts and my macro lens.

Montana seems to be growing on me. Friday afternoon found me napping in the hammock but when Sharon called to me I awoke to enjoy the perfect Friday afternoon treat…chocolate chip cookies and local Irish Death Stout. Indeed, life is good. I took this shot with my new iPhone 13 Pro but I don’t know the intricacies of using the three lenses or other advanced features so this is just a snapshot. I can’t recommend this culinary combo highly enough. Yum!

It is impossible to resist that irresistible face. I am in love with Maggie. And, I think she likes me, too. She greets me enthusiastically each morning, and for that matter, each time I enter the room after an absence of five minutes or more. She sits on my lap contentedly observing the world around her. She’ll curl up at my side and chew on her rope toy. She is a joy. Of course, I’m third in line after Moose and Sharon. In this shot, she sat on Sharon’s lap while I took shot after shot waiting for the expression to perfectly depict Maggie.