Great Blue Heron in a Tree / November 28, 2017 by Todd Henson

A Great Blue Heron landed in a tree right along the trail.

Great Blue Heron are common enough in this area that I’ve photographed them many times. But I never tire of them, and I’m always on the look out for new opportunities. Sometimes I don’t have to look far.

My first image of the heron shows how the eyes are able to see below. It very likely knew we were there; it just wasn't bothered by us.

We were hiking in a nearby wildlife refuge, one I’ve spent a lot of time exploring. Just as we walked under a lone tree between two wetland areas we heard a squawk and a rustle of wings as a Great Blue Heron flew over and landed atop the tree we were walking under.

We froze. Most herons I encounter here are skittish and will fly away when you get too close. As you can see from the photo looking through tree branches, we were almost directly below the heron. We slowly moved to get a better view and the heron stayed where it was, seemingly ignoring us.

I walked back the way we’d come to position myself on the sunlit side of the tree, still moving slowly to avoid spooking the heron. It proved very patient, letting me position myself and create a series of photographs. As I photographed I noticed it making quiet guttural sounds, and could see its throat moving to the sounds. It was an interesting behavior, one the photographs didn’t really capture.

Closeup of the Great Blue Heron's head as it watches the nearby wetlands.

Eventually, we moved on, leaving the heron in peace. As luck would have it the heron flew off not long after we’d moved on. I turned around to watch when I heard it fly off, but wasn’t able to capture any images of it. Maybe next time.

Great Blue Heron in a tree, with its head tilted slightly in my direction.

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More with Great Blue Heron

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Bundle Up! It’s Cold Out There

Tranquility and Turbulence

Don't Forget to Look UP When Photographing Birds

Great Blue Heron Strutting Its Stuff In The Wetlands

Great Blue Heron in a Tree

Great Blue Heron Swallowing a Fish

What Can You Find in a Wetlands Park?

Herring Gull and Great Blue Heron Standoff

National Park Service Centennial

Great Blue Heron on a Windy Day

Small cluster of young Ringless Honey Mushrooms

I found the mushrooms above in one of my favorite parks along a wooded path in late August. I believe these are young Ringless Honey Mushrooms, also known as Armillaria Tabescens, that grow on the roots of hardwood trees in eastern North America. There were several small clusters in the area, all growing on the forest floor below hardwood trees.

It was still early in the day and the trees were filtering the sunlight, creating a soft light on the mushrooms. I thought these might look nice shot with a shallow depth of field and a completely out of focus background, so I took the camera off the tripod and lay down on my stomach, resting the camera on the ground in front of me to get a ground-level view of the cluster of young mushrooms.

Achieving a shallow depth of field was fairly easy with the long lens I had with me. I shot at 440mm and was as close as I could get to the mushrooms and still focus (around 6 or 7 feet). I used an aperture of f/6.3 and given the level of light I boosted the ISO to 1600 to get a shutter speed of 1/60 second. As you can see, this allows for a fairly shallow depth of field.

But looking at the photo now I realize I should have attempted a few shots with smaller apertures to increase the depth of field and get a little more of the mushroom cluster in focus. There wasn’t anything directly behind the mushrooms, so I could easily have kept the background out of focus. I love shallow depth of field, but I need to constantly remind myself to also create images with a larger depth of field. Maybe an aperture of f/8 or f/11 would have been better. I should have experimented more.

So next time you’re out in the woods, take a moment to look down. Maybe you’ll find an interesting mushroom along the forest floor, something worth photographing, or at least worth studying. And if you do choose to photograph the mushroom take the time to work the subject, experiment, try large apertures for shallow depth of field, but also try smaller apertures for more depth of field. Perhaps even try a very narrow aperture to capture the entire scene in focus showing the mushroom in its environment. It only takes a few extra minutes to work the subject, and it’s almost always worth the time.

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2017 Great Falls Race: Working the Race / November 7, 2017 by Todd Henson

The Potomac River rushes by as people prepare for the race. A slalom pole can be seen to the left hanging over the river.

In previous posts I’ve shared photographs of the racers in the 2017 Great Falls Race, an annual whitewater event on the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. where kayakers and canoeists compete on the Class V rapids. In this post we take a look at some of the people who work the race, setting it up, monitoring and running it, and providing safety support when needed. Without these people there would be no race.

Working the race involves first getting to the edge of the river. People arrive by boat, haul their boat onto land, then set up at the edge of the river.

The folks who work the race arrive just as the contestants do, by kayak, canoe, or boat, over the river to the rocks on either side of the race lines. They have to haul their boats out of the water then hike over the rocks to the waters edge.

Some locations are more difficult to get to than others.

Setting up near the finish line to the race. This is below the last large fall.

Some of them run lines across the river to mark parts of the race. Some of the lines will hang the slalom poles which can be lowered during the slalom portion of the race and raised back out of the way during the classic race.

Lines are run across the river before the race.

Securing one end of a line to the rocks.

Some of the lines they run are safety lines to assure they don’t get swept away if they fall into the water. These are world class rapids with large volumes of water moving very quickly. You can see many of the people on the rocks have these safety lines.

People setup on both sides of the river.

Notice all the lines, some marking parts of the race, some hanging slalom poles, others for safety.

There are also people strategically staged along the course in kayaks ready to assist anyone who needs it in the water. Thankfully, it isn’t needed very often, but it’s good to have that support there when it is needed.

Sometimes people need assistance in the water when their boat overturns and they get pulled out into the river.

These races involve a lot of people, both in the race and behind the scenes. To any of you out there who do work these events, setting them up, tearing them down, working the river, know that your efforts are noticed and appreciated.