Goodbye to gas forever! (well for mowing anyway)

Yes, I did it! I’ve retired my gas-powered mower and trimmer!  I’m now   in the lawn department!

Last week I purchased a new Homelite (cordless) 24volt 20″ electric walk-behind mower. http://www.homelite.com/products/lawn_mowers/model/UT13122

There’s been a bunch of bad reviews on the first ones and, in fact, my first had a battery problem. You have to look at the manufacture date. Buy the most recent build, they have a better battery. The first time out I was able to mow the entire lawn with one charge. BTW, if you are a “lawn skinner” like so many here in the south, then you have to change the way you cut or forget it. For a healthy lawn you should never cut more than 25% anyway. This mower, with a very sharp blade, mows beautifully and I had no problems. It was fun mowing with this beauty! The unit is so quite and it spins the blade very fast, cutting the grass very cleanly. I’ll never burn gas ever again doing yard work!.

I also replaced my gas trimmer with a new Black & Decker 18 Volt 12″ Cordless GRASSHOG Trimmer/Edger. This is another wonderful product! http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProductGuide/Product-Details.aspx?ProductID=6427

Now, if I can figure out a way to buy that electric/hybrid car then I’ll be good! Oh, now I’m looking into a solar panel system for charging all of my rechargeables! I’ll let you all know when I find the best deal that works.

Turkey beard and meadow, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Well, I went to photograph the fawns but I couldn’t resist the temptations to shoot a few landscapes! This was a beautiful scene with the prolific bloom of turkey beard accented by ferns and mountain grasses.

Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 24mm, f/18 @ 1/60 sec, ISO 320 (due to wind!)

Fawns, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

I’ve just returned from a quick trip to Shenandoah National Park to photograph the fawns. I’ll post more tomorrow when I get the images processed. Here’s one of my favorites!

Canon EOS 5D, Sigma 80-400 EX OS lens at 400mm (this is the first time that I’ve really shot my 80-400 since getting it back from Sigma. There was a problem with the focus and it’s now fixed! Very Sharp!!!)

Photography, politics, blogs…oh my!

As I posted earlier, I apologize for the political posts as of late. With the past week of posts I feel that I must explain myself. We nature photographers generally have a specialty, whether it be landscape, macro, wildlife or, like my specialty, environmental conservation, and the list goes on. Often, we nature photographers, are nature photographers just to be nature photographers. This is generally the way it starts out but in time one will find a niche or a passion for a specific focus encompassing ones work. Working alongside conservation land trusts, and environmental groups like Wild South, Southern Environmental Law Center, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, The Conservation Fund and many more, has channeled my desire to use my photography to help protect our wild places. Rocky Fork, a 10,000 acre undeveloped land tract here in East Tennessee, has intensified my focus even more toward the environment and with environmental conservation comes politics! There’s no way around it and I can’t deny that I’m very passionate about the work I do, be it photography, my conservation efforts and politics. For my field of photography I can’t see any way around political objectives being injected into the discussion. Conservation is very political and it has been since President Theodore Roosevelt helped make it that way. As for this blog, it belongs to me and reflects my work as a photographer. It’s about my existence as a conservation and environmental photographer. There will be lots of photography and there will be some politics as I feel the need to express myself. Our new site, www.mountaintrailphoto.com, is all about photography! You WILL NOT see any politics there, you’ll only see articles about photography for photographers! For those that feel passionate about nature photography for nature as well as photography, and feel as I do, that conservation and environmental issues need us in the fight to save our wild places, then I hope this is the place you visit. I welcome all to stop by and I hope that I can make a difference in guiding you in your quest to help protect our wild places!

 

 

Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 24mm, polarizer, ND grad, f/16 @ 1/16 sec

Without the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, a wonderful local land trust, and the efforts of environmentalists, photographers, politicians, and ordinary people that have a love for wild places, this area would now be closed to the public and million dollar homesites, ski runs, restaurants and lodges would grace this beautiful location.

Check out this great website! www.energystar.gov

www.energystar.gov

There’s a lot of misconceptions about compact fluorescent light bulbs and mercury , there’s a great info sheet about this here on the site. As well, there’s many ideas and solutions to saving energy and saving you money on powering your home and office.

“Compromise, Hell!” Wendell Berry

“Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations.”

“Compromise, Hell!” Orion magazine , November/December 2004 – Wendell Berry

 

The more that I listen and read about the politicians and their move to drill in every little corner of the United States I get sick to my stomach. I truly can’t believe that the American people really understand the magnitude of the decision to open up federally protected natural areas to corporations for natural resource extraction at the expense of an addiction to oil. It will take years to get the first barrel of oil out of the ground or ocean. Do the American people believe that if congress votes yes, on drilling, the price will immediately go down? Even with the added supply, if the US Dollar remains weak the price WILL remain high. We now know that the weak US Dollar along mated with aggressive investor speculation is the real driving force to the huge price increase in oil. I only hope that the American people will heed the words of a past President.

“The object of government is the welfare of the people.” “Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”
Theodore Roosevelt -”The New Nationalism” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910

We are the most wasteful Nation in the world! We should be embarrassed that we, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, would be so ignorant to this manufactured situation that we would sign our wildlands over to the profiteers of “Big Oil”. While we struggle to overcome this energy situation the CEO’s sit back and count their Billions in profits. I can still remember the interview on the Today Show where the CEO of ExxonMobile answered a question as to why they will not give up the big profits to help the US economy and citizens. The CEO stated that they were not in business to help out American citizens, they’re job is to make as much money for their share-holders as possible. Now, why in the world would we be giving “Big Oil” tax breaks and a free ride to our natural areas when they care nothing about us, the US citizens. Think about it, we are paying huge prices for oil, then we are, on the back end, giving them our hard-earned dollars through huge tax-breaks and they do not care one bit! WAKE UP AMERICA!

The movement to “Green Energy” is now!

The Environmental Defense Fund is publishing these great videos on its website. Here are two of the many that are coming soon. Pretty good info! The first is the into to the series and then the second is about Solar Energy. www.edf.org

 

Woodall Shoals Reflection #2, Chattooga National Wild & Scenic River, GA & SC

Here’s another Woodall Shoals reflection image from my GA/SC trip last week. I decided to crop in a little more on this scene, concentrating on the perfect reflection.

Also, just a note, I processed this photo using the new CaptureOne 4.1 and also my new “docked” Dell Precision M4300 mobile workstation. Man, this thing is FAST! I’ll post the build info later in this post.

Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 24mm w/ fall and tilt, polarizer

What a wonderful find! Lake Tugalo at first light.

 

What a wonderful find! As I left for northern Georgia I knew where I was heading but I wasn’t sure how the overnight accommodations would work out. I usually like to find a quite place near my morning destination to park and sleep in my truck. As I pulled up to Tallulah George State Park I noticed a sign leading to Stone Place. It also stated 4-wheel drive required, so I headed toward Stone Place! When I came to the end of the road I found a nice level spot, set my clock and I was fast off to sleep. At 5:30am my alarm went off and I slowly rolled out of the truck and decided to find out what this Stone Place was all about. As I walked around the grove of trees I noticed that, before me, was a beautiful mountain lake! I went back to the truck, grabbed my camera gear and headed to the lakes edge. I spent the next two hours photographing the many changes that the landscape went through as we transcended early morning.  This is the first image taken on the trip!

 

Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 45mm, no filters, ISO 200, f/11 @ 25sec

 

RAW processed with CaptureOne Pro & Adobe PhotoShop CS3 Extended

Woodall Shoals, Chattooga National Wild & Scenic River, SC & GA

I’ve just returned from a wonderful trip to the mountains of North Georgia and South Carolina. I’ll update this post later tonight or tomorrow morning but I wanted to post one of many images that I took on this trip. This one was from this morning along the Chattooga River. Let me know what you guys and gals think! I have to say, this was a beautiful morning along the River!

Updated Post:  Just a note, for all that do not really know my work. I’m an environmental and nature photographer. I’m not trying to or make it my life’s work to find the perfect photo. I’m trying to accurately portray the environment that I photograph in as close to reality as “I” see it. Yes, I do work the image with an artful eye but, for the most part, the photo is about the moment and the subject that I’m connected to at that time. This scene was captured at 8:39am. I waited for the morning sun to illuminate the background trees, knowing that this would give me that wonderful green that I desire for my photos. I also felt that this would help balance the perfect reflection in the rain pool. This is the result of a strong morning sun from a cloudless blue sky. This is the exact scene that I wanted to capture. When I look at this photo I feel as though I’m still standing there on the Shoal. I can remember having to squint when I looked up from the camera toward those sun-drenched trees. Man, I want to go back!

 

Thanks all for commenting!

 

Canon EOS 5D, TS-E 24mm (fall w/ slight tilt), polarizer, ISO 100, f/11 @ 1/6sec

 

RAW processed with CaptureOne Pro & Adobe PhotoShop CS3 Extended