a quote from e.b. white

I have a book of essays by E.B. White. His writing is engaging and reading the book is like having a conversation with a good friend who also happens to be brilliant.

Monte

my town

I have so much footage that never gets out of the hard drive on which it is stored. I decided to make a one-minute video montage of recent scenes from my town.

Monte

On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca wrote in his essay, On The Shortness Of Life, that it is not that life is too short, but that we waste a lot of it. How do we deal with this tragic reality of our nature?

the skaters

Trunk River pond, January 16, 2022

Trunk River pond, January 16, 2022

Two days of below-freezing temperatures and we get frozen ponds with ice skaters and hockey players. It’s part of the culture in my town by the ocean. I’ve lived here for 19 years, but I still feel like a tourist. I like it here, so I do want to call this place “my town”. I like the slightly funky vibe I feel while driving through the different neighborhoods, especially when I’m in Woods Hole with its community of artists and scientists.

Monte

late afternoon magic

Ninety-second rumination about the stress so many of us are dealing with in these troubled times (have humans ever experienced untroubled times?). I’ve used video shot at West Falmouth harbor on January 8, 2022 to express the thought.

christmas eve, west falmouth

West Falmouth about an hour after sunset on Christmas eve, 2021.

The above image is from a series of 280 images shot with the DJI Air 2S as part of a timelapse that didn’t workout as well as I’d hoped it would. I’m still practicing the whole “nightlapse” thing. I do like this image. I flew the drone directly over my backyard at 200 feet AGL in a stationary position. It had the required anti-collision light made by LumeCube, and, yes, I have my part 107 license.

Monte

Ben and David and the last light

Ben at Chapoquoit, December 16, 2021

David at Chapoquoit, December 16, 2021

I was out at Chapoquoit beach yesterday with the Sony 24-70 f 2.8 lens on the Sony A9ii. I like it. The temperature was over 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which is unusual for this time of year on Cape Cod.

Monte

chapoquoit sunset

Chapoquoit, December 6, 2021

Shooting with my new Sony GM 24-70 f2.8 lens on the Sony A9ii body. I’ve been missing this focal range on the Sony system. I like having it now.

Since I began photographing the kiteboarders several years ago, I’ve concentrated mainly on the zoomed-in, tight shots. I still like those pictures, but I’m developing a liking for these wider angle shots as well. The wide angle with the water and the sky captures more of the “feeling” of the day.

Not sure who the kiteboarder is in this photograph.

Monte

a popular rainbow

Our backyard, December 02, 2021

I noticed the late afternoon sun reflecting off the leafless trees while walking past the glass doors last week. I saw the rainbow (there is actually two of them) when I opened the door to take the picture of the lit-up trees. Later in the day, I saw that many people in my town had taken the same picture and posted it on social media. Here is my version.

Monte

skimming chapoquoit

Nico at Chapoquoit November 17, 2021. I got behind on looking through my photographs. Frankly, I’m not just a month behind, it’s more like five years. Most of the images I’ve ever taken are buried on different hard drives in a jungle of terabytes. Lost forever, no doubt.

Monte

sunset from my backyard

Chapoquoit sunset, 2021-12-05

The image above is the sunset as seen from my backyard. More accurately, the image is the sunset from 225 feet directly above my backyard with the drone facing west overlooking West Falmouth harbor and Chapoquoit beach beyond. I’ve been going out most evenings for the past couple of weeks to get drone images of the sunset above my backyard. Many people love Chapoquoit sunsets in my town. I love them, too. Years ago, I was standing on Chapoquoit beach with a small crowd of strangers watching a spectacular sunset. A kaleidoscopic light show happened in the sky above us for several minutes after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, and spontaneous applause and cheering erupted from the crowd of onlookers around me. It was a moment when I believed I was part of a group sharing a deep sense of connection to each other and the planet on which we live. No cathedral built by people was a match for that sky.

For most of our species’ 300,000 years on Earth, sunsets have been the best show (and the only show) to see at the end of every day. Today, sunsets are too often spent indoors under artificial light with no awareness of the change from day into night. We’ve stopped watching one of the most moving shows in nature. We’ve abandoned a daily ritual of connecting to the cosmos from which we were born. We are poorer for it.

Monte


cindy-lou at chapoquoit beach

I was out at Chapoquoit beach today looking for kiteboarders, but none were there. I did find Cindy-Lou chasing a ball, and that was plenty fun to photograph.

Monte

to essay

Out at West Falmouth harbor taking pictures and thinking about E.B. White’s comments on people who write essays (and maybe people who make videos).

Monte

geese

Geese flying into West Falmouth Harbor as seen from the dock

Capturing an image of the geese flying into the harbor is something of a Holy Grail for me. The event happens with little warning and if I’m not holding the right lens on the right camera with the right settings when it does happen … I don’t get the shot. In this case I was holding the Sony a9ii with a 16-35 mm lens, which was not as much of a zoom as I would like. The shutter speed was only at 1/500, which is too slow to freeze the geese in flight. But this is as good as I’ve done so far. I like the reflections.

Monte

moon

Over Quissett harbor on November 11, 2021

Moon

This is a picture of the moon at sunset over Quissett harbor in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on November 11, 2021.

The moon is believed to have formed after a cataclysmic collision between the early Earth and another Mars-sized planetesimal.  Earth’s moon is especially large in comparison to the planet about which it orbits.  The moon’s presence has many consequences for Earth: It plays a significant role in generating ocean tides, and it stabilizes Earth’s 23.5-degree axial tilt relative to Earth’s orbital plane around the sun.  If anybody ever asks you why there are predictable seasons on Earth, the answer is that Earth’s rotational axis is tilted at 23.5-degrees from its orbital plane. So, keeping that axial tilt stable is essential.

Would there be life on Earth without the moon?  Would there be intelligent life on Earth without the moon?  Would there be humans on Earth without the moon?  There is so much to think about while taking pictures.

Monte

moon over quissett harbor

Quissett harbor is a favorite place for photographers in my town. I went there yesterday for the sunset.

Monte