A few recent wildlife shots. . .

For some reason, I've been on a bit of a bird kick lately. . .  I usually don't take shots of anything that moves.  In order from the top, is Mad Robin, Twilight Cormorant, Cedar Waxwing and Hunting Osprey.

The Robin Family nested in our Privet Hedge in the back yard a few weeks back.  Whenever we would go outside, the mother and father would both fly out and glare at us, cheeping in indignation and then dive bomb us repeatedly!  The Mad Robin shot was taken seconds before he flew at me!

The cormorant shot came about as an accident.  I was down at Portland's Waterfront on the dock near sunset and saw a couple of Harbor Seals swimming around about 100 feet away.  It looked like they were headed my way, so I waited for them, and instead, the Cormorant popped up right in front of me!  Unfortunately, I missed the silvery fish that he gulped down as soon as he surfaced, but I like the shot anyhow.

I took the Cedar Waxwing shot, (which is nothing special as a photograph) when I was on a birding walk with our friends, Bruce and Michele, on Sunday evening.  Believe it or not, I had never seen a Cedar Waxwing outside of a bird book, and there was a flock of 10-12 of them down at Capisic Pond.  I think I've always mistaken them as lady Cardinals from afar, but as you can see, they're quite clearly different.

The Osprey is also not the best shot, being cropped in significantly to show it this large, but he was fishing right over our heads (about 50 feet or so above us) at Wolf's Neck State Park in Freeport a couple of weeks ago.  It's very special to see these massive birds feeding their chicks and hunting for fish in the ocean right near you.

So that is my wildlife tour for today.  Hope you enjoyed the photos.  As always, you can click on any of them to view them larger.  Cindy

Heading Homeward--Last Shot of the Night. . . .

I took this shot last night while on a very nice near-sunset walk with my husband at Capisic Pond close by my house.  I love the suggestion of detail in the duck's body and face, the occasional hints of green in the cattails surrounding her, and the beautiful undulating waves moving away from her.  It is a very peaceful image to me.  Hope you like it.  Cindy

Hot Off the Press: My Article in Pop Photo Magazine!

Well, you can imagine how excited I am right now, having just received my own copy of the article in Popular Photography Magazine about my available light food photography techniques. In my wildest dreams, I had imagined that it might be a small sidebar with a thumbnail version of my photo, not a WHOLE PAGE! You can click on the article to read it larger, or if you are one of my photographer pals who actually subscribes to this magazine, check it out for yourself on page 23! The only disappointment I have is that they messed up my web address, transposing the fw to wf in the http://www.cfwphotography.smugmug.com . Details, details though. . . Hopefully the first of more articles to come!

Cello Dreams. . .

Last night, my daughter, Maya, participated in the Portland School System's All City Music Concert for strings and band.  They sounded surprisingly good!  At the end of the concert, as it is the end of the year, the students who had rental instruments through the school had to turn them in, and we suddenly found ourselves cello-less! 

So this morning, I went to Frost Gully Violins in Freeport, Maine to rent another Cello for her, as she would be having her next lesson this afternoon. 

The new cello was so much more beautiful than her old one that I just had to put on my 50mm f/1.4 lens and take some detail shots of it.  I love the way a cello or violin scroll looks: like a fiddlehead fern top in the early Spring, all curled up.  The shapes of these instruments are so sensuous and lovely to look at and I thought they would look best, emerging from the darkness of my black velvet background. 

I hope you enjoy the new shots!  Cindy

Kermit's Big Day Out

It was a busy morning at Audubon's Gilsland Farms in Falmouth, Maine today.  Everyone was buzzing about the arrival of a real celebrity of the natural world:  Kermit the Frog!  He apparently arrived in a trench coat and dark sunglasses the night before at Portland Jetport, but you know how it is with celebrities:  the more they try to blend, the more they stand out. 

And the other thing you know about celebrities is that no matter how much they might grouse about the Paparazzi, sometimes they love to pose.  I was on assignment for Portland Magazine.  As soon as I whipped out my camera, Kermit began to strike poses for me: looking frankly into the camera, soaking demurely in the water, and of course, I easily captured him talking about all the movies he's worked on and what a diva Miss Piggy is even behind the scenes!  (Don't breathe a word to Piggy though. . .)

The only stipulation about the photo shoot was this:  "NEVER shoot my bad left side!"  So like the good Paparazzo that I am, I stuck strictly to his good side.  He was thrilled with the results.

Just between you and me and the lamp post:  he may try to get me on the set of the Muppets soon!

Cindy

Maine, the Way Life Should Be. . .

These are some of the many colors of a Maine Spring.  (Not necessarily in the order I've provided, of course.)  The first flowers are often Crocuses, which the bees, hungry for real flowers after a winter of fasting, crawl avidly over.  Apple Blossoms and tulips follow, along with cherry blossoms, lupines, roses, lady's slipper, peonies, tiny blueberry blossoms, and so many others that the landscape feels to me like it is singing!  Sometimes I can't keep up with all of the flowers that I enjoy photographing, but this spring, I've made the most of it and really gotten out there. 

You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them and then click the BACK button to come back to the blog.

I hope you enjoy my photographic tour of Spring in Maine as much as I enjoyed taking the pictures.  Happy Spring everyone!  Cindy

I won Popular Photography's April Photo Challenge!

I found out last Friday that I won Popular Photography Magazine's April Photo Challenge: to take a photo using reflectors instead of electric lighting or strobes/flashes.  Here is the image that won, called Orange Margarita.  I get $100 as a prize, as well as my image in the July 2010 issue of PopPhoto with a small interview about the photo.  Plus, my website will be featured within the interview, which should be great publicity for me. 

Here's how I did it:  I often shoot food this way.  Most of the photos on my Stockfood Portfolio were taken this way as well.  The object (in this case the drink) is placed on a white foamcore board with a white foamcore board as background.  I then use a third white foamcore board to bounce the light that comes from the right side from my sliding glass deck door onto the left side of my composition, creating a more even, "professional" lighting. 

Shot with my Pentax K20D, the Pentax FA-50mm f/1.4 lens at f/11 on a Bogen 3011 tripod. 

Thanks for reading!  Cindy

Barack Obama

I was really lucky on April 10, 2010, to be able to attend President Barack Obama's speech in Portland, Maine! (Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them)  And because the news that THE MAN was in our town speaking has already made to the Flash section of Portland Magazine, I can show these off now!  These are my three favorite shots from the speech.  My father very kindly helped me out by loaning me his wonderful Pentax DA 55-300mm f/4-5.8 lens, which allowed me to get these pictures that I couldn't have done with any of my other lenses.  Thanks Dad! 

It was quite the ordeal, really, despite all the excitement.  I had to be vetted by the White House first, and then show up almost three hours early to get in line and wait for an hour until they let all of us press people in the side door.  There were tables for the "traveling press" which I didn't understand.  Who was this traveling press?  (I guess it was CNN, NPR, etc, etc--the big guy!)  And across from where President Obama was going to be speaking, was a big stage, with masking tape strips on the floor, denoting where all the video camera people (such as CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc, etc) got to place their ginormous tripods and fifty pound cameras.

We poor schmoes with simple cameras had to find spaces in between all of the video cameras.  Everyone was very nice, of course, but those video cameras take up a LOT of space--what with all the cords snaking this way and that.  I ended up sitting on the front of the stage between two video cams and taking all of my shots from there.

It was really sweltering hot in the auditorium--everyone was excited--people had been lined up for blocks, five across the sidewalk, just wall to wall people, so the energy was palpable.

And finally, five minutes EARLY, in walked our President!  It was so exciting and so LOUD it was unbelievable.  I noticed in the taped speech coverage, that CNN had blanked out all of the screaming that was so intense it made my eardrums vibrate.  I've never even had that happen in a rock concert!

The President's speech was great, just as I expected, but being able to share space in the same auditorium with him and several thousand people who were just thrilled to see him was the best.  Once again, thank you Portland Magazine!

Cindy

Leave Nothing but Footprints is out!

My first book of landscape photography is out! Titled "Leave Nothing but Footprints", the name was taken from the motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society.  "Take nothing but pictures.  Leave nothing but footprints.  Kill nothing but time." 

 It is a very nicely sized book.  I decided to go with the smallest format Blurb offers, at 7x7 inches square.  When I was in the Maine Photography Show last week, they had printed an Exhibition Catalog with Blurb in this same size and it was really a wonderful little book.  It has my image of the Blueberry Martini splash shot that was in the show in the latter 1/4 of the book. 

LEAVE NOTHING BUT FOOTPRINTS by Cynthia Farr-Weinfeld | BOOK INFO

You can see twenty of the pages that I randomly selected to give you a feel for the book.  All four seasons are represented, along with a lot of Earth-friendly quotes and bits of poems.

Feel free to click on the little envelope icon at the bottom of the preview to share it with your friends or relatives or click on the little shopping cart icon to buy the book in one of three manners:  perfect-bound paperback, hardcover with dust jacket or hardcover with an image wrap (the cover images printed on the hard cover.) 

I hope you'll tell everyone about my new landscape photography book and perhaps even be motivated enough to purchase one for yourself!  Cindy

New Tulip Poster

I designed this poster yesterday--it prints out to12x18 inches.  I wanted to give the tulips an old-style look with the processing, and hope that I've succeeded.  Happy Spring everyone!  Cindy