Jenny and I went to see Buzzards Bay today because I thought it might be frozen, and it was. I took my drone and got video and photographs of Jenny walking out onto the frozen bay. The bay has frozen several times since we've lived here but it doesn't happen every year.
Monte
lindsay - December 27, 2017 at Nobska beach
This is Lindsay, my daughter. Today I asked her if she would go with me to the beach at the lighthouse to shoot some video for a short end-of-the-year movie. As happens all to frequently, there was a screw-up with the microphone (my fault, of course) and I have no audio! Tomorrow temperatures will be in the single digits and the wind will be blowing over 15 mph. Probably won't be able to talk her into going back to the beach to reshoot the video. Bummer.
Now I know how to get rich quick: Design a camera with an onboard microphone that actually works really well (as opposed to what is widely available already) and is always on when the camera is rolling.
I did manage to take this photograph.
Monte
My friend, Paul, called me today (Christmas) to tell me that he and some of the other surfers were headed for the beach. It was really windy and fairly warm (high 30's). So, I loaded up my cameras and went to the beach.
The conditions were pretty harsh and I had a few mishaps with the wind blowing over some of my tripods - I don't think there was any serious damage.
Taking pictures was more challenging than usual. Here are three images of each of the three surfers that were out: Paul, Miles and Ben in that order from the top down.
Monte
Jenny at our kitchen table on Christmas eve morning. It is our 34th Christmas together. Merry Christmas.
Monte
This isn't a great photo, but it is one of the first photos I've taken with my new drone, a DJI Phantom 4 Pro. The scene is looking across the Great Sippewesett marsh, past Black Beach and out to Buzzards Bay. I took it at low-tide on December 17, 2017; the temperature was 28 degrees fahrenheit and the wind was around 7-miles-per-hour.
I can't recall the elevation of the drone for this shot but it was somewhere between 50-85 meters, I think. I didn't have the confidence to fly it all the way out to the water - still very afraid of losing it.
I launched the drone from the bike path; I figured this was safe because almost nobody else was out there. A few people did walk or ride past while I was flying and most of them stopped to talk to me. They were interested in the drone and peered over my shoulder to see the image on the small remote control screen. When three people were standing next to me and asking questions I flew the drone into a position to get an aerial video of us waving at it. This is going to be fun.
The marsh is home to a variety of wildlife, including a lot of migratory birds. It's a beautiful place and I feel lucky to live here.
Monte
This photograph is from July 26, 2017 and was taken right outside my kitchen at the small bird feeder I keep there. It provides hours of entertainment in the summer.
If you only casually observe a birdfeeder you might see it as a bunch of cute little birds from different species flitting about in harmony and enjoying the feast. But when you freeze the action at 1/1600th of a second a totally different story is revealed. The birds are engaged in a genuine struggle to get as much of the food as they can, or starve.
I have several photographs like this one that show the intensity of the fighting and when I scroll through them I can’t help but draw comparisons between the birds and people. Humans have overcome many of the hardships of day-to-day survival. Most people in developed nations don’t worry about having enough food. Indeed, the problem for more than two-thirds of Americans is too much food. But the competitive, and lustful, nature of human nature causes us to create new struggles unique to our species. We can never have enough of whatever we think we want, and every day is an effort to get more. We quantify our success in life by comparing it to what others have achieved or acquired, especially others in the unrealistic world of television and the internet. It is a futile struggle of our own making.
Success for these birds is measured one day at a time and the metric is survival. If they have survived by the end of the day they have succeeded and the reward for their work is the chance to enter the contest again the next day. And so it goes until the day they fail.
We humans like to think of ourselves as special and more sophisticated than other forms of life, but how similar is the existence we’ve created to that of the birds at my feeder?
The birds at the feeder present another, darker, metaphor for the aggression and violence that is a hallmark of human behavior, and that is the subject of a video and an essay that I have been thinking about for several months. Coming soon, I hope.
Monte
Out again today with the new DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone trying to learn how to use it. The high winds are making the learning a bit scary. I first went to the beach-side of West Falmouth Harbor and tried an "intelligent mode" called draw. This mode allows me to draw with my finger on the touch screen of the controller to plot the desired path of the drone. I did that and launched my drone on the path. I thought I was going to lose it. It just kept going. I finally stopped it by interrupting the draw program and managed to get the drone to come back. I tried another "intelligent mode" with similarly poor results. I'm assuming the trouble is me not knowing what I'm doing, but the instructions seem pretty straightforward.
After the harbor, I went to the beach where it was much windier and got some shots of the shoreline. I tried hovering over some fishing seagulls, but couldn't stay with them.
Finally, I went to the opposite side of the West Falmouth Harbor to video and photograph the sunken boat you see in this picture.
Overall, I really like the drone and I think it will add to the creative possibilities in my toolkit for making videos and images.
Monte
This is Comet. She belongs to my friend Peter who is one of the kite surfers. Peter does oceanography when he isn't surfing. I went to the beach a few days ago to photograph the surfers, but they were leaving when I got there. Peter, however, came back to play frisbee with Comet, which gave me an alternative for action photography that day.
Monte
Ben Stadelmaier at Chapoquoit Beach, April 2017
I changed my webhosting service to Squarespace because I wanted to start building online galleries for my photographs. My first blog post on the new blog has this photograph from several months ago of my friend, Ben, kite surfing at Chapoquoit beach. I like the shape of the water he is kicking up.
I don't really like to spend time on the tedious aspects of creating a website, even when it has been made easier by ready-made templates, like this one. But, that is what I will be doing for the next several days.
The next video I expect to start working on will be about the local protesters in my town who are advocating for the impeachment of our president. They have spent the last four months standing on the village green every Saturday morning for half an hour with their protest signs. They are an interesting mix of people, young and old, but all very dedicated to their mission.
I also just bought a drone for taking aerial photographs and video and I am very anxious to get started learning how to use it.
So, plenty of things to keep me busy for now.
Monte